Ghost of a Chance!
by Packerfan95
Summary: *AU*In the past, Kai made a deed with the Skeleton King known as Samukai to save his father's live, but it was took from him instead. Now that a new threat has arise, it's up now to Kai to become the bounty hunter to vanquish the creatures of the night and reclaim his soul in the end. But many obstacles may stand in his path to fulfill his deed. Even with the one he loves the most.
1. Prolouge: The Deed

**Hey everyone, Packerfan95 is back with a whole new story. Plus I've got OCs you may have seen in my previous stories, don't get confused. This time this AU is all on our favorite fire ninja, Kai. What happens if the Ninja of Fire sold his soul to a skeleton king we know as Samukai. He begins to act weird and at night on a night to pay his debt, he is a whole new person. A Ghost Rider. Find out what happens to Ghost of a Chance.**

* * *

**Prolouge: The Deed**

_It's said that the Land was built on legends. Tall tales that help us make sense of things too great... or too terrifying to believe. This is the legend of the Ghost Rider. Story goes that every generation has one. Some damned soul, cursed to ride the earth collecting the Underworld king's deals._

_Many years ago, a Ghost Rider was sent to the village of San Anumlia to fetch a contract worth a thousand evil souls. But the contract was so powerful, he knew he could never let Samukai get his hands on it. So he did what no Rider has ever done before. He outran the Underworld King himself._

_The thing about legends is that... Sometimes they're ture._

* * *

Across the land of Ninjago and in a small village named Ignacia Village, a sixteen year old teen with messy brown hair that was sculpted to become spiky, eyes were a chocolate brown color with a notch of scar on his left eyebrow, was working inside his family's blacksmith shop. Four Weapons. The teen, Kai, pounded on the white hot bar of iron with a mallet to craft a sword for a customer. After he gave the bar a final pound to have the mallet echo in the quiet shop, Kai gripped the handle tightly with his leather gloves and dipped it in a tub of water by his side. Steam clouded in front of his sweat drenched face from the heat of the furance and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his white workshirt and lifted the finished sword up. He narrowed his eyes as the weapons he worked hard on for hours was twisted and bent. "Ugh! What am I doing wrong!?" he grumbled and tossed the disfigured metal into a small pile of other mis-shapened swords that he manufactured were the same.

The metal clanked and a man simplied chuckled. Kai looked over his broad shoulder to see his father the one that chuckling. A man with similar features as his son as well on his hair but had a red bandana wrapped on his forehead. His eyes were darker and had no scar on his eyebrow, but has burnt marks for years as a blacksmith. "You made it too fast, Kai." he chuckled lightly and placed a hand on his shoulder to pat it. "Remember what I told you..."

"I know. I know." Kai sighed. "To forge the perfect weapon, you first need the right metal and plenty of heat. Cool it off and. And Presto!" He grabbed a fresh bar of iron and placed it in the coals of the furance.

His father chuckled. He remembered the first part, but not the second most important one. "And also need to be patient. No matter how much fire you have, experience isn't something you learn overnight. That's what it takes to be a blacksmith." He then began to throw a coughing fit and kept coughing till he cleared his lungs.

Kai looked at his father worriedly. He has been throwing those fits for almost a month now and it's not only worrying him. But his mother and his little sister, Nya, as well. "You okay, Dad?" he asked finally.

His father coughed the final time and nodded. "Yeah I am." he wheezed. "This smoke is only getting to me that's all." He turned to the clock on the wall to see it was closing time and the customer hasn't arrived for his sword. "Since the customer hasn't arrived, let's close up for the night." He saw his son nod and walked over to the entrance and pulled the garage door down from the ceiling and locked it. He then turned to his son. "Remember to stoke the fire or else the furance gets clogged up." and headed for the stairs to the upper floors of their home.

Kai watched his father disappear on the last step and grabbed the stoker and pushed the coals around until they were cooling embers. He grabbed the bar that he began heating and was grateful it wasn't hot and placed it with the other bars, tossed his leather apron on a coat rack and his gloves aside and headed upstairs after his father while shutting the lights off.

* * *

Time has past and it was late at night. Darkness filled the sky with stars scattering the night with a crescent moon shining. Kai shifted on the couch from lounging as he watched TV and turned his head to see his father as he snored in his sleep on the recliner. He rolled his eyes while smiling and pulled himself to hear his bones pop and trekked for the kitchen. The house was silent as it was past midnight and every resident was asleep. Except for Kai. The spiked, burnet teen groggrily stepped into the small kitchen with his feet softly padding on the hardwood flooring and opened the fridge to grab himself a midnight snack. He gazed around while scanning and grabbed the carton of milk and opened the flap to receive a disgusting rotten scent in his nose. He gave it a quick sniff to crinkle his nose. "Spoiled." he muttered and drained the milk in the sink and tossed it in the trashcan underneath the sink. But stopped as noticed something when the other garbage was moved.

He reached into pick up a piece of paper as he read the letterhead from the Ignacia General Hospital with his father's name below it. His chocolate brown eyes scanned the letter and suddenly grew wide as he read. _Test results, confirmed. Stage two, lung cancer. Bronchitous from second hand smoke. Possible life span, 1-2 years._

Kai stopped and turned to his father asleep while coughing a little in his throat. He couldn't believe it. His father was slowly dying. Has he told his mother and Nya? Was he ever gonna tell them at all? Or keep it a secret for good? Kai couldn't imagine his father lying on a bed with a respirator mask over his face as his life was slowly vanishing away. His father taught him everything to become a blacksmith and didn't want him to leave. Angirly on his father's fate, he crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it in the trashcan and headed downstairs to the shop.

* * *

Wind howled with thunder rolling in the sky. Street lights dimmed as a man walked down the deserted roads. He was elderly with snow white hair combed back to reveal his wrinkles on his forehead with dark eyes with tints of red in them. He was dressed in a black kimono with ancient hieroglyphics of an unknown language running down the right side of his chest. He even walked with a bamboo staff with a skull as the head.

The elder walked down the quiet streets of Ignacia with his staff tapping to echo the streets. His dark eyes scanned around until he caught a faint red glow that came from a shop on top of a hill. He simply smirked. "Perfect." he said to himself with a scratchy throat and continued his way to the shop with the lights behind him illuminating.

* * *

Inside the shop, Kai grabbed the heated metal bar from the furance and brought it over to the anvil to pound it with the mallet. Metal echoed through the quiet shop as the teen was making a sword. Or pounding his anger and frustration out. He couldn't believe that his father was dying without his family not knowing and couldn't see him gone. His father meant everything to him and kept wishing there was a way to save him. The teen kept forging the sword to its shape and placed it in the tub of water and pulled it out to growl as it was bent and twisted again and tossed it aside to grab a new bar, unaware of the man at the back door. Kai placed the bar into the furance to heat it up and felt an uneasy presense to turn and stare at the man. He had no idea how he unlocked the back door or who he was. The elder simply walked in with his staff tapping on the stone floor and gazed at the deformed swords. "Nice swords." he complimented, voice cracking and a bit raspy. "For a beginner, Kai."

Kai stopped frozen and looked at him suspicously. How does he know his name out of the blue? And what was he doing here at this hour? So many questions. "Uh... Can I help you?" he asked. "How do you know my name? Who are you?"

The elder chuckled while walking around. "I know everyone there is in the world." he replied. "I travel far and wide to seek those in need of help. But I was wondering if _I_ can help you?"

The burnet kept eyeing him. "I don't understand." he said, puzzled. "Who are you?"

The elder again chuckled and stopped near a light-shown wall. "I have many names but I prefer to be named Samukai." he replied. Thunder rolled and lightning flashed after the name without any rain pouring. Kai could've even sworn he saw a shadow of a hunched skeleton with four arms from the elder's shadow. "As I was saying," he continued. "I know you're in need of help. Your precious father dying soon and you don't want him to leave." Kai felt his heart racing as he knows of his father's fate and slowly reached for a knife behind him and kept it behind his back. Major stalker he saw. "But my purpose here is to help. I can help you and heal your father if you are willingly."

Kai eased down while keeping the knife hidden. He didn't know whether to trust him or not to believe him, but the glint in his eyes meant truth. He slowly placed the knife down while eyeing him still. "What's your price then?" he wondered.

Samukai smirked and walked up to him till he stood in front of him. "Oh... I was thinking maybe...your soul." he replied.

_My soul?_ Kai wondered.

Samukai reached into his kimono and pulled out a small scroll and held it out. "Sign the contract and I can promise you a better life for your father." he said. "For you, your mother, and sister." Kai kept eyeing him as he knew of his family and took the small scroll and unraveled it and slowly read it. He felt something prick his thumb on the wooden base and watched a single drop of blood land on the signature line. "Oh that'll do." Samukai said and took the scroll from him. Kai looked at him confused on how the drop of blood was his signature. Samukai rolled the scoll back up and hid it in his kimono. "By morning, your father will be healthy and you and your family can be happy. Now sleep." and tapped his forehead.

* * *

Kai immediately snapped his eyes open and looked around his surroundings. He noticed that he was lying on a bed and kept turning his gaze to survey the area and realized he was in somewhere familiar. He was lying on a twin-sized bed with a red comforter on top. A wall of weapons hung with metal glistening by the dawn light. Kai then realized it. He was in his room. But how did he end up in it in the first place?

He heard the sound of someone whistling a tune and turned his head to his door to see his father was the one. He noticed he looked normal and wasn't throwing a coughing fit every minute. "Rise and shine, sleeping beauty." he said with a clear voice. "What are you doing? Sleeping the day away?"

The spiky haired burnet slowly sat up and stretched his tired arms and rubbed his eyes. "You're looking better." he rebutted with a yawn.

His father smiled. "I feel better even." he said and then sighed. He knew now he had to tell son the truth. "Kai," he began. "I've been diagnosed with lung cancer from second hand smoke. But when I went to the doctor, they couldn't find it. Almost like if I was cured last night." Kai thought it over on how he was better than before but then remembered. Samukai last night. After he signed that contract, he kept his word. His father was still alive with his family. "Kai?" his father asked.

Kai shook his head to bring himself back and simply smiled. "I'm just glad you told me that, Dad." he replied, lying a little as he read the letter. "But I wished you would've told me, Mom, and Nya the news before. Then we wouldn't be scared later in the future."

His father sighed and softly pat his head. That was true on his part but didn't know how to. "I know." he said. "I just didn't know how you and Nya would react. Your mother already knew, but we kept wondering about you two." and wrapped his arms around him. Kai smiled a little and wrapped him too for a light embrace. "But now that I'm better, we can put that aside." he said and removed himself away from his son. "So how about you and me forget this and go forge some weapons as father and son?" Kai still smiled on the plan and nodded. Time to rebuild a better bond.

* * *

Kai swung his katana with both hands as he sliced across the wooden dummy. He favored the katana as the best weapon to fight and defend with. Others may not agree, but he enjoyed the feel and light, weightness of the blade. Quick and swift. He practices with it nearly three hours a day to perform the techniques right and effectivly. Try to become the best ever. Even have a rematch against a friend of his that fought with the sai's. The burnet stopped slashing the dummy to turn his head to smile at his father in the shop. He gripped the handle of his weapon to continue to slay his foe while his sister watched.

Kai's father lifted his head to see his son and daughter out on the small courtyard to smile. He was glad to announce the good news after saying he told about the bad news. His children were both proud of him and forgiven him for keeping the news a secret. Even his wife was proud too that he has told them when she knew before them. He turned away while smiling and continued hammering the heated bar of metal.

As he slammed the piece of metal on the anvil, he began to hear something making an unusal sound and turned his head to the source; the furance. He peered closely to see that the coals weren't heating evenly and and pushed the air pump down to noticed there wasn't any air flow. He gasped. The furance was clogged.

He quickly grabbed the stoker and shifted through the coals to unclog the vents and heard the unusual sound growing louder. To that, he began to take action faster to unclog the vents. His wife turned her head from the front desk while brushing her long black hair behind her ear. "Richard?" she asked, wondering about the situation.

Richard stopped as the sound was starting to sound catastrophic and quickly turned to his wife. But it was too late. "Kathleen!" he shouted and saw darkness.

* * *

Kai and Nya felt the ground shook a little and turned to the small explosion and felt the blood drain from their faces as they saw the fire. "Mom! Dad!" they both shouted and ran to their home. The siblings could hear their neighbors screaming with alarms blaring down the streets. Officials were on their way to aide. The siblings reached the entrance of their home to gasp in horror to what they say. Their father laid on the ground with his back burnt to third degree burns from the furnace that had a crater on the side. And their mother laid on the ground as well with blood pooling around her, but was barely breathing. Kai and Nya were petrified to move from the scene and slowly cried while Nya held to her brother tightly.

Kai wrapped his arms around her to softly cry with her as their parents were gone. He watched paramaedics reach the shop and escorted the two outside while they tended to the bodies and the fire department extinguished what little flames were left. The spiked hair teen watched as if everything was silent and time had slowed as he watched the paramedics move his father's body to a black bag with his slowly dying mother in the back of an ambulance and rushed to the hospital. He couldn't believe it though. His father was gonna be on his death bed, but was cured in the morning, but died too soon. He then realized it now.

Samukai.

He furrowed his brows to the broken promise and quickly noticed no one was moving. As if time was frozen now. Even his sister was frozen in his arms. He suddenly felt a flash of light run through him to see a skeleton and heard the sound of a staff tapping the stone floor and turned his head to growl at the elder turning up from nowhere. Samukai. He removed his arms from his sister as she remained still in her spot and slowly walked up to him. "You promised to save him!" he hissed.

"I promised to heal him and I must take his life. Might as well as your mother's." Samukai chuckled. Kai growled towards him and swung a hook punch at him, but felt something touch underneath his chin and suddenly became petrified to move. "You cannot harm me. I'm immortal. You sold your soul to me to heal your father. You're not the first to do so. And if you don't do your bargin of the deal as my bounty hunter, I can do far worse to you than my gatekeeper. You work for me now and you can regain your soul once I'm finished with you." He removed his finger from his chin and walked away. "I'll be watching over you, Kai."

Kai fell to his knees on the ground and prompt himself up to see time had returned to its natural state and watched his sister fall to her knees and crawled over to her. She rested her head into his shirt while clinging to him tightly. Kai gazed around the shop to see the damage and saw there wasn't much damage, but the broken furance. Almost as if it was the only thing to cause damage to both parents. He glared at the thought of Samukai and patted his sister's back for comfort.

He thought about the future now as he'll have to take the shop to support them. He'll become the head of the house will be there for Nya like his parents would. He'll take full responsibility now like his father taught him. But he then remembered Samukai and his final words he said and growled.

_I'll be watching over you, Kai._

* * *

**Well how's that for a prolouge so far? Starting the first chapter on a new story is slow work but hey I got it finished. So what do you think? Leave a review and follow and favorite the story if you wish to find out more. Have a nice weekend and see you all next week. :)**


	2. Taking the Shots

**Hey everyone, Happy Friday and happy 4th of July! I don't have much to say but I thank you all for the reviews in my first chapter and to answer XShinkuKikinX's question, yes my OC Lucas will in this story as well as my FanFiction's sister's OC, Laurie. But anyway, enough blabbering, enjoy this new update of Kai. **

* * *

**Chapter 1: Taking the Shots**

_Kai... Kai... Kai..._

"Kai!" a voice whispered loudly. "Stop daydreaming and focus."

Kai snorted and shook his head to observe his surroundings. He could see that he was in a poorly lit area with the moon as its source of light from the sun roofs. He then remembered he was in an abandoned warehouse that was stacked with old crates. He shook his head cleared again and turned his gaze until he made contact with amber eyes of the team leader, Cole, Ninja of Earth. "Sorry." he whispered the apology. "I...was thinking of something."

Cole narrowed his eyes through the slit of his black mask and smacked the fire ninja upside the head. He rolled his eyes to sigh. "What's more important?" he questioned him. "You daydreaming or our mission?" The Ninja of Fire glared at him for the sarcasm. Not his fault. "Because right now we got armed men and hostages to save. So shut your imagination and focus."

"Why did we get called up to do this?" Jay, the blue ninja, Ninja of Lightning, asked. "Why couldn't the police just negotiate with them and we can relax?"

The earth ninja turned to him and smacked him. "And let the bad guys get away with the bank heist?" he retorted. "We're ninjas, Jay. We don't let the bad guys wins. Especially Serpentine or Garmadon." He turned to look over Kai's body, as they laid down on a rafter to watch everything below them, to Zane, Ninja of Ice. "Zane, what do you see?"

The white ninja's eyes were closed as he was using his sixth sense to detect the danger for the team. He felt a buzzing feeling in the back of his head stop and opened his dark blue eyes to stare at the three. "I sense six armed men in this facinity." he replied while pressing his earpiece to commincate with the other two ninjas. "Two with the hostages. Two with assault rifles. One with a shotgun and one with a sniper." and points at the goon on the other side of the warehouse platform.

Kai lifted his head to see the armed goon on the platform and kept his head down. "You see him, Lucas?" he asked the grey ninja through his earpiece. "He's right near you."

"I see him. I see him." Lucas', the grey Ninja of Water, voice replied. "I will take him and the guy with assault rifle. Laurie will stay with Lloyd because he had to sneak out again. Especially when his guardians told him to stay put with my dad and Nya."

"Hey I wanted to help." the green ninja's voice chasisted. "I'm a ninja too, you know."

"And with this mission, could end you getting shot." Cole retorted. "Lucas, take the sniper and rifle man out and then take the squirt home."

"Ten-four, Cole." Lucas replied with a whine from his cousin.

Kai and the others watched a grey figure quietly sneak up on the sniper and quickly disappeared to the darkness. One down, five to go. "Haha!" Jay laughed quietly. "Nice one, Lucas."

Zane quickly felt something buzz his head to gasp quietly and raised a gloved finger to his lips covered by his mask. "Quiet, brothers." he whispered, voice barely audioable. Everyone became quiet to his warning. "There's one below us." he said and pointed downward.

Kai looked over the rafter and saw the danger Zane warned them. It was one with the shotgun and he was directly below them. The red ninja gaze around and noticed he was next to stacked crates. _Perfect._ he thought. He looked up at Cole. "I got this one." he said and received a nod from the black ninja. Kai quietly stood up without making much as a squeak and jumped back.

He felt gravity take hold and softly landed in a crouch behind the crates. He quietly snuck through until his back was quietly pressed against a box while making sure his katana on his back wasn't clattering. He peered around to see his target near him, but stopped as he could see another goon walking on the next floor above them. _Come on. _he said to himself. _Move. _He watched the goon turn around and saw his chance. _Now!_ He quickly ran up to him to throw his gloved hand over his mouth to hear his muffled screams and dragged him back while putting him in a headlock. He kept a firm grip while he struggled until he fell limp and laid him down; unconscious. "I got him." he sighed to catch his breath through his earpiece. "I'm gonna scout around."

"Ten-four, Kai." Cole's voice said. "We saw Lucas take one of the rifleman out and we're gonna scout around too. That's three down, three to go."

"Plus I don't know where my cousins went." Lucas added. "They were just behind me."

"Well that's because Lloyd snuck away from me." Laurie, the orange Ninja of Wind said. "I don't know where he went. I'm looking for him."

Kai gasped to himself. Laurie was somewhere in the warehouse with still armed goons searching for Lloyd. He cared and loved the wind ninja and doesn't want anything to happen to her since she was still training to become a professional ninja like they were. Whether against everything that has happened, he didn't want her to get hurt. The Ninja of Fire took a deep breath and pressed the fire symbol on his earpiece. "Laurie," he called for her. "Promise me that nothing happens to you and Lloyd and both of you are safe. Can you promise that?" he asked.

* * *

Laurie heard the fire ninja's worriness to sigh. She knows that he worried for her safety ever since she joined the team. Whether it was when she was in her tornado to kill herself, Belinda, the stone warriors that killed Rhea. Almost everything when on missions. He cared for her since she was still understanding her elemental powers, wind, and didn't want anything to happen. The orange ninja sighed and pressed her earpiece. "Sure." she replied to reassure him. "I can promise you that, Kai." She removed her hand from her ear to clutch her bō staff tightly. _Where did my brother go? _

The wind ninja quietly peered through the large warehouse to seek out for a boy dressed in green. She gazed around the warehouse to feel the hairs on her neck stand up as it reminded her when her brother and Rhea was kidnapped and was searching for the Serpentine. Only that it wasn't Skales that took the two, but was a samurai warrior made of stone by a dark deity named the Overlord. That shadow that had used a girl as his assassin or pawn while deliberating her to think she was a mute by a curse. But wasn't. The red head pushed it aside to not rethink the past and continued her search for Lloyd before any of the goons find him. Where was he?

Laurie continued to quietly transverse through the warehouse while hiding behind crates and platforms to conceal herself from danger. She heard heavy footsteps and quickly pressed herself against a nearby crate and slowly peered to see the other goon with the assault rifle and held her breath to feel sweat form at her brow as he walked towards her to have her heart race.

_CRACK! _

"Huh?" the goon's voice wondered and the footsteps became quiet and distant. Laurie sighed. "Boss! We may have intruders here! The police sent the ninjas! Snips is out!"

Laurie heard the door of an office swing open to see two goons run out and head towards the direction of the call. She could see, from her spot, three hostages, two male and one female, tied back to back together with tape over their mouths to gag them. All looked frightened and worried. She then heard soft footsteps and watched a small figure in green enter the office. She gasped. "Lloyd!" she whispered. It was him that made that sound. Just so he could sneak in and help the hostages. She now saw how grown up he became since she was gone with her mother and was a huge help. She created a small smile underneath her mask and quietly ran after him.

The wind ninja stood by the doorway to look back in case anyone was turning back and entered to hear muffled surprises. She quickly held a finger to her lips and they nodded while Lloyd was busy untying the knot that held them together. "Hurry, Lloyd." she whispered to him.

Lloyd rolled his emerald green eyes to his sister's rush. His brows were stitched together in concentration as he worked his way through untying the complicated knot. He squinted his eyes as he was starting to lose patients to the knot until it finally loosen and the rope fell to the floor. "I got it." he quietly said in triumph. The three hostages smiled after they removed the tape from their mouths and the rope off of them. "Now I know an exit we can use. My guardian and I can lead you the way. But we must be quick and quiet. The police should be here soon." The hostages nodded and stood by the door.

Laurie peered from the door and quickly pressed her earpiece. "Guys," she called. "Lloyd and I have the hostages safely. We're taking them to an exit. Keep them away from us."

"Ten-four, Laurie." Cole acknowledged. "Kai, you're the closest one to them. Make sure nothing happens to them. We'll take the rest out."

"On it." said Kai.

Laurie peered through the doorway to see the area was cleared and motioned everyone out. She could feel her heart still racing and her breathing quick and shallow as she and her brother were motioning the three people to the other side of the warehouse. She just hoped she or her brother get shot from anyone. She looked over her shoulder and had Lloyd lead the way to the exit and she'll bring up the rear.

_Danger!_ the wind howled in her ears. _Behind you!_

There was the sound of a weapon being cocked and the wind ninja quickly turned on her heels to gasp and remained frozen to move. In front of her was a muscular man dressed in all black with a buzz cut haircut and a loaded pistol in his hand. "Hello Poppin." he said coldly. Laurie remained frozen in fear of gunpoint and felt her body and breathing shake. The assaliant simply smirked to the ninja being trapped. "I wonder how the Ninja will react when they see a down teammate."

Laurie gasped and felt the blood drain from her face. She faced threats of death, unlike how her cousin died and resurrected to become Lloyd's guardian. But she didn't want to face death itself. She looked over his shoulder to see someone dressed in red with golden shoulder armour and headpiece to his mask. Kai! Without thinking, the orange ninja screamed. "Kai, help!" she screamed to him.

* * *

Kai turned his head to the cry and gasped to see Laurie frozen with fear and at gunpoint. He heard rough footsteps to another goon walk up to aide his comrade. He could feel his blood turning to ice in worry and started to panic. Laurie, the girl he was in love with, was going to get hurt. He was too far away to help reach her on time. He backed away to think of a plan and averted his gaze to see a motorcycle. Handle bars were wide and low with the front wheel in an angle by the support springs. The fire ninja thought it was slightly similiar or not to his old Spinjitzu motorcycle, but he knew how to ride one. Without hesistation, he quickly ran over to hop onto the seat and kick-started the cycle while twisting the throttle to hear the engine roar and sped off from the tires screeching on the cement.

The red ninja raced down the warehouse to gain the goon's attention and swung his leg out to knock him off his feet and disarm him and twisted the throttle harder to gain more speed. "Laurie!" he shouted. The lead boss turned from the orange ninja to the red ninja racing towards him in full speed and quickly turned around and fired his weapon. Kai heard the weapon firing the bullet and it echoed in his ear through the roaring engine and cried out as he felt the iron bullet penitrate his chest, raking his entire body. He felt unbalanced to swerve and feel himself being launched off the bike and land roughly into a crate.

Laurie gasped as she watched Kai take the bullet for her and fell to not hear anything from him as the bike collided with him in the mess. "Kai!" she scried for him. Nothing came form him. The wind ninja felt her blood boil and turned to the boss to glare at him. She could feel the air shifting around her and quickly held her hand out toward him. The boss goon felt himself being pushed off his feet and yelped as he flew across the warehouse until he made contact to a concrete beam and fell to unconsciousness. The wind ninja held her hand down to feel adrenaline swim in her body and could hear sirens blare outside and saw the police swarm in and quickly ran to Kai. "Kai!"

The wind ninja knelt next to the fire ninja's limp body and felt tears cascading as he wasn't responding. She couldn't see the blood in his suit and became worried. Oh why did he have to be the red ninja? She won't be able to tell how badly he was losing in blood. "Laurie!" she heard everyone shout to her.

The orange ninja lifted her head up to see her friends running up to her and Kai. "Guys, Kai just got shot to protect me." she exclaimed. She began to wonder how Nya is gonna react about her brother's shot. She was Kai's sister after all and is scared for her brother since he was all she had left since their parents died. Laurie brought herself back to remove Kai's mask and looked at him worriedly as he remained still. "I...I..." she stuttered and quickly untied his belt and opened his gi to reveal his white undershirt to blink. "What the?"

She gazed around his chest to inspect for blood or any wound, but there were none. She furrowed her brows with everyone as they examined him and couldn't fathom it. Kai looked like as if he wasn't shot at all and healed. But Lucas or Lloyd weren't around him after his fall. It doesn't explain anything now. Everyone heard a small groan escape from the red ninja's throat and quickly surrounded him. "K-Kai?" Laurie spoke.

Kai groaned while sliding his eyes open to reveal the chocolate brown irises and gazed around with a blurry vision. He felt his eyes clear up and slowly prompt himself to look at everyone's worried and confused looks while his body raked in pain. He groaned while holding his head. "Man that hurts." he finally groaned. "What happened?"

Everyone looked at him concerned. Doesn't he remembered being shot and crashing that could've killed him? The ice ninja saw his wondering look and knelt next to him. "What happened was that you were shot and took a bullet to the stomach." he replied and noticed the fire ninja's eyes growing wide. "We witnessed when you tried to save Laurie and took the bullet and crashed from the motorcycle. But yet when we examined your body, we didn't find any traces of blood or open wounds. We don't even know how you're alive still."

Kai had let all of the news sink in and simply shrugged his shoulders. "He must've missed." he guessed. Although, he could've sworn he felt his body broken and torn as he _was_ shot. But as Zane said, there was no blood or wounds to tell. The Ninja of Fire shook it away to clear his head and looked at him team and family with a small smile. "Did we at least succeed on the mission?" he asked.

Everyone noticed his small smile and softly smiled back underneath their masks and nodded. That made Kai relieved that they won't need to face dangerous obstacles again. They all heard footsteps coming towards them and all turned to the chief of police and a detective walk up to them and removed their masks. They could see past them to see the goons being arrested while paramedics were outside with the freed hostages. "Hey nice work on the mission." the chief congradulated them while scratching his pencil thin mustache. "If it wasn't for you, they would've gotten away with it all."

Lloyd simply chuckled and leaned against his cousin while crossing his arms. "Ha, it was no sweat." he said and looked up to receive a hard stare from Lucas. He rolled his eyes as he knew the look. Another rant from his cousin and sister for sneaking out.

"Yeah. It's our job to protect and make sure the baddies never win." Jay added.

The chief simply gaze a small smile and it quickly vanished with a small huff. He turned his gaze to Kai and noticed he was underneath a broken crate with a motorcycle by his feet. "Uh... Are you gonna be alright?" he asked. "Something happened?"

Kai nodded and pulled himself up with Zane's help. His body cracked and popped like he was stretching in the morning and felt strong to support himself. Most times, people would feel weak to support themselves, but Kai was the opposite. "Yeah I'm fine." he replied and fixed his gi and tied his belt around him. "I just had a bad motorcycle accident to protect her." looked at Laurie with a warm smile.

Laurie shyly smiled back and kept an arm near him in case he needed the extra support. "Well then," the chief continued. "We still thank you for the help and stopping these clowns."and turned to watch the boss being taken away. "We'll call you if we ever need anymore help. We'll leave the Serpentine and Garmadon to you alone."

"Will do." said Cole and watched the chief and detective walk away and turned to Kai. "You think you can walk?"

"Yeah I can." the Ninja of Fire replied. "Not the first time happened on a motorcycle accident." He remembered having his old Spinjitzu vehicle and had an accident when trying to conjure it more and learn how to drive. "I just want to go home and sleep." and started walking his first step, but stopped as something caught his wrist and turned to Laurie.

"Kai," she said. "If you need any help on the way back, I'll be happy to help and can't thank you enough for what you done and..." She was stopped as felt her lips sealed by his and lost herself.

Kai pulled away from her to smile. "I know you want to help, but I'm fine." he said. "I thank you for the help, but let you know I am fine and love you no matter what." and gently grabbed her hand while wrapping his fingers with hers. "Come on, let's go home." and lead the way with her by his side and the others following.

* * *

**So how was it? Kai gets shot and yet survives... Something seems a bit off to his survival, wonder how. Well I do but you need to read more and find out. But anyway, I hoped you enjoyed it, have a fun and safe 4th of July and a wonderful weekend and see you all next week for the next update. :)**


	3. Guardian Angel?

**Hey everyone, happy Friday. I hope your 4th of July was fun and safe but now it's time for an update. I don't have much to say but this chapter is sortof short but not much of a filler. Anyway, read and find out what happens.**

* * *

**Chapter 2: Guardian Angel?**

Thunder crashed. Lightning struck and flashed hot rods of electrical discharge. Rain poured down by the gallons while a flying ship sailed through the stormy night sky. The droplets tapped on the glass windows in fast beats as a drum to have Kai turn his head at the window. He hated the rain. Rain was water which was the opposite to his element to extinguish fire. Like his sparring battles against the water ninja. It annoyed him to glare at it and turned his head away to lounge back on the recliner he sat on.

After their mission and a long day, Kai and the others returned to their home, which used to been an old pirate ship, the Destiny's Bounty, to retire for the night. But only the girls went to their room for the night while he and his brothers went for the living room or their game room of the ship. The fire ninja turned his gaze away from the fan letters he received in th email in his hands to spectate what the others were up to. He could see Cole, Zane, and Lucas were playing with a deck of cards on a foldable table while Jay and Lloyd were playing with video games of Fist to Face 2 against each other. He had no idea where his teacher, Sensei Wu, was but figured he was somewhere in the ship. Like usual.

Sighing, Kai turned his gaze back to the television to watch the green and blue ninja have a heated fight of pounding the buttons on their controllers until Lloyd's character stepped back and with a quick thrust of his thumb on the joystick sent a powerful low kick to send Jay's character off the arena and fall to his _doom_. He even heard the blue ninja screaming in defeat and whined in the end of his character's death. Just a game though. Don't need to be dramtic about it. "Have you tried not dying?" he asked sarcastically with a small smirk.

The lightning ninja leaned back against the couch as he sat on the wooden floor to stretch his tired arms and sore thumbs to turn his hazel eyes to the fire ninja. "Have you?" he rebutted and stifled a yawn to stretch. He heard Kai snort and turned his head back to his letter. Jay simply shrugged his shoulders to chuckle a bit and pushed him forward to hear his bones pop as he grabbed his cooled can of soda from the coffee table and lean back. "Why don't you have a soda?" he offered. "Or some pizza to get yourself relaxed."

"You know caffeine after eight gives me nightmares." Kai stated and grabbed a small handful of droplets of chocolate chips and popped them into his mouth. As he munched on his candy, he began to rethink of his accident in the warehouse when saving Laurie. He could've sworn he was shot and died after he lost control, but instead wakes up and acted like nothing happened. It made him, Laurie, and everyone else confused and wondering. Sighing, the Ninja of Fire tossed his envelopes onto the coffee table which rested a pizza box on top and ran his fingers through his spiky hair. "Do you guys ever believe in second chances?" he asked, hoping to find an answer.

"Well...yeah." Cole replied while looking from his hand of cards. "I mean look at Lucas." gesturing toward the grey ninja. "He was Garmadon's apprentice since he was ten, comes with us until he left to protect us and came back again to fight and stop the Solstice Battle. He may have died in Sensei's arms, but he came to fulfill a new prophecy as Lloyd's guardian."

Lucas tossed in two pieces of fruit flavored hard candy as their currency of bets for their card game. "Not to mention my thirteen scars on my back." he added and placed a new card to the center of the table. "I believe in second chances too, but I may have used mine up. Unlike you, Kai. You have had many like a cat would with nine lives."

Kai thought it over to agree with him. This wasn't the first time it has happened to him. He has once been stabbed by a thug and walked away without a scar. Accidently hit by a car without any broken bones. There was even that one time where he fell off the roof of their old apartment building they used to live in before winning their ship back from Garmadon and landed on a car that could've paralyzed him but walked away unscaved. And then there was the recent one in the warehouse. Kai had to admit to himself from Lucas' prespective that he have one too many second chances. "I know." he agreed finally. "But still. Have you ever once wondered how life would be like if...you were gone after that second chance?"

Zane looked up from his card to raise and furrow his brows. The nindroid was confused as the others as he stared at the spiky haired teen. "What do you mean, brother?" he asked. "Nothing will never change or nothing like that will never happen. We may have had that experience before, but our brother returned and we now rely and protect each other."

"I hope so." said Lloyd and looked over the couch to stare at his cousin after pausing his and Jay's game. "I lost you so many times, Lucas. And I don't want to lose you again."

Lucas smiled while rolling his hazel grey eyes. "And you won't, Shrimp." he chuckled lightly. "I'm awake from my coma for about four months and won't be going anywhere or back as your dad's apprentice. As long as you don't drop another mast on me." He heard his cousin chuckle along and turned his cards to smirk. He laid the thin paper cards down and showed his on the table to grab the small handful of hard candies. "Three kings high." he smirked.

Cole and Zane's jaws dropped and looked up to give the water ninja a death glare. "Not so fast, Puddlebrain." the earth ninja spoke up and laid his cards down. Lucas was now the one stunned as he saw an Ace and King in his hand and looked at the cards on the table to have his jaw dropped. All the cards were the same suit. "Royal Flush." Cole smirked and took the candy back to him and leaned against his chair. "Who's winning now? Sweet victory. Kai, Jay, you in?"

Kai rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Nah I'm good." he replied and leaned his head against the headrest. "But thanks for answering my questions though. All of you."

Jay looked at him to give him a small smile. "Hey no problem." he said. "It's what we do." He turned his head back to lean it against a couch cushion. "I'm in for a couple of rounds. I'm in the mood for cherry flavored." The Ninja of Lightning grabbed the couch cushion and tucked himself into a tight ball to acrobatically flip over the couch and land softly on his bare feet and grabbed a chair to join the card game. Zane became the new dealer and passed out two cards for each ninja and two in the center and they all each gave the blue ninja some of their bets for him to join. Jay looked at his cards and then at Kai as a wild idea came to him. "You know, Kai," he said. "Even though you escaped death a lot, you must be having someone watching over you. A Guardian Angel."

_Guardian Angel?_ Kai thought. That could be the case in his scenario of avoiding death. Or was it something else he had in mind. A certain contract he remembered signing over almsot two years ago to save a life of someone. Someone he loved and cared for. But the two lost their lives the next day and he felt guilty about it as he kept thinking about it as he was one that caused it. The fire ninja sighed and turned to face the window and saw a faint reflection of himself. "Or maybe it's something else?" he muttered under his breath and lightning flashed outside. And he could've sworn he saw his face turn into a skull. He blinked about it at first and shook it out to turn back and watched Lloyd have a tournament happening on his favorite video game; attempting for the highscore.

* * *

Rain clattered on the ground as a flying ship roared past in the sky. But unnaturally and suddenly, the droplets became drops of embers and fire without igniting anything. A shadow walked across the wet ground barren land of a desert, but soon took the form of a man. His skin was pale with a pale shade of blue underneath his skin. Eyes were dark and menacing. Hair black as night and unkempt to match with his clothing. All black with a long black coat flying behind him. The fiery rain stopped pouring and returned to normal downpour, but not a single droplet made contact to him.

The man simply chuckled as he gazed around the surface of barren ground after escaping the kingdom of the Underworld. A new world. A flash of lightning struck the sky to illuminate him and he screeched to show his glass-like razor sharp teeth. A new threat has arrived. Something unknown.

* * *

**Hmm... Wonder who it can be. ;) Anyway, like I said it was sortof short but also a bit funny on some bits but anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, follow and favorite it and don't forget to review if you wish to. I don't have much else to say but have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week. :)**


	4. Heart Black as Night

**Hey everyone, happy Friday and time for a new Kai update. I should've mentioned this since the beginning that this is a Ghost Rider remake from the moive by I'm adding in the Ninja to play it all out with Kai as the hero and my own added twists to it. I've seen people write remake with movies like those Frozen ones before so my turn. Anyway, enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Heart Black as Night**

Out in the outskirts of Ninjago stood a small building off the main road with many motorcycles parked in the hard ground. A man with thick shoulders and beefy arms dressed in motorcycle gear leaned against a beam on the porch to gaze around the starlit desert from the stuffy air inside. He felt the small chills of the desert night and drank in the scent of recent rain after each inhale. How quick rain can pass in a desert but what a nice night. "Here you go, Hedge." a feminine cheerful voice said to break the silence.

The man nicknamed Hedge turned his head from the dark sandy desert to the face of a blonde haired with red streaks female in jean shorts and a short flannel shirt and cowboy boots holding a dark amber bottle for him. The biker simply smiled and took the bottle from her. "Thanks, Amy." he said and she retreated back into the noisy bar of pool cues clattering and jukebox music. Hedge took a sip of his beverage to clear his head and suddenly felt unknown chills run down his spine. He felt his hands become cold suddenly from his fingerless gloves and looked down to see frost build up on the glass and wondered. Just odd. The sound of shuffling made him lift his head up and watched a pale figure walk up from nowhere and stepped on the wooden steps. "Hey pal," he said threating and stood in front of him. "Golden Dragons only."

The ghostly figure stopped and slowly strained his head to stare at him with his cold dark eyes. "Golden Dragons you say?" he said content and calmly, but slightly angered and annoyed.

"Yeah." Hedge said and shoved his shoulder to push him back. "What? You got a problem with that?"

The figure looked at his shoulder being pushed and gave him a cold stare with the dark orbs. He could see him flinch a little by his stare. "As a matter of fact," he said and placed his right hand on his chest. "I do."

The biker felt his breath being vacuumed from his body and struggled to gulp down air. But he couldn't. His skin was slowly turning to a deep shade of blue and purple while his eyes became black and were sunken into his skull. He lost his control of motorskills in his body to drop his bottle for it to shatter and felt the life drain from his body and collapsed on the wooden patio. The figure scrunched his neck and cocked it to the side to pop the top vertibraes of his neck and walked up the steps to push the two small swaying doors and entered.

* * *

Kai quickly transversed down the halls from the living room in silence. The floorboards creaked after each step the fire ninja could hear and even hear the passing thunderstorm outside and the calls from his brothers playing their card games down the hall. He wished he could join them, but he just suddenly felt nauseous and was instructed by Zane to lie down in their shared bunkroom. And that's what he intended to do so. The question to him was how did he become sick all of a sudden? Must've been a migraine or something he ate. Who knows.

The fire ninja felt his balance stagger as he reached the halls of the bedrooms and caught his balance to lean against the wall. He could feel his head pounding like a drum and rattling to have him squeeze his eyes shut tightly. He heard his breath become shaky and skin crawling with sweat. He even felt a bit warm. Although he was used to it since he was the Ninja of Fire. He hoped it wasn't a fever. He absolutely hated them.

Kai felt the pain slowly surpass and slowly pried his eyes open to exhale a shaky breath and hugged the wall with his clammy hands. He had no idea what just happened, but he was glad the pain passed aqnd slowly continued to stagger to the room he shared with the others. But stopped as he heard muffled voices from the room Nya and Laurie shared room and heard the mention of his name. Curiousity gotten the best of him as the two kept mentioning a conversation and quietly placed an ear quietly against the wooden door and listened carefully to his girlfriend and sister.

"You know Laurie," Nya's voice spoke. "If you're worried for my brother after today's rescue mission, maybe you two should...you know...go out on a date and talk it out. I worry about him and Jay and me and Jay go out together to a small date and we talk things out. That's how you keep a relationship with another strong. You love Kai, right? Give it a try and see. A double date with me and Jay tomorrow."

There was a long pause silence, followed by a small sigh. "I do love Kai," Laurie replied. "But...after what he's been through and what I've been through, both lead to disasters. Last time Kai and I done something was at that ball and I nearly got killed by a four-armed samurai made of stone. I just don't know know what to do. I'm nervous to talk or ask him. I need to think on it."

After hearing that, Kai removed his ear from the door to sigh and dare not hear more. He knew he and Laurie have been through a lot together, but they both have hit dangerous paths. He faced Serpentine, Skulkin Army, Stone Warriors that were in the city for awhile, and a lot other things and she has too. He even knew she was more worried about his _accident_ a few hours ago. But from what he knew, he felt like it could work. A date to fix their relationship. Like what he seen in the movies with his sister before. And that's what he'll do then. Ask the wind ninja out tomorrow, but how?

The fire ninja felt another wave of nausea wash over him to hold his head and quickly reached the room across the hall and entered. He staggered to change from his suit to his pajamas and reached the bunk-bed he shared with Cole and quickly climbed up the small wooden ladder to the top bunk and collapsed. He felt his head burning intensly than before and refused to get any medicine and threw his comforter over his warm body and let the rain calm him to sleep.

* * *

A whimper of fear filled the air and Amy's body shook in fear as she cowered behind the bar counter. The establishment was dark and cold to make her see her breath and was scared of the uneventful. She carefully peeked from the corner to see the pale blue, lifeless bodies filled around the room. It was quiet now. The dark person that entered done this to them in quietness and she was alive and alone. _I should make a run for it. _she though. _Before he finds me._

Suddenly she felt a hand clamp around her throat and was brought up from her hiding spot to face the dark demon. She couldn't find her voice as she lost it in fear with tears streaming down her face. She was even too scared to try and escape. "I knew you were there." he said coldly. "I can smell your fear." He simply didn't perform his life drainage like he has done to the others but loosened his grip to let her fall. "Let the world know that a new dark times has risen and nothing will stop me." Amy quickly nodded and quickly scrambled out to run for her life.

The figure closed his dark eyes to drink in the cold air of death around him. He should've drained the life from the poor girl, but she had to send a message for him. A message that he has come and nothign will stop him on his search. But who was he though? The pale blue figure continued to drink in the cool night atmosphere and slowly slid his eyes open to smirk and turned on his heels. "Obsid," he greated. "Long time... No see."

A man with thick black hair and dark eyes with broad shoulders and thick arms, dressed with no undershirt to reveal taut muscles but with a black earthy color trench coat and pants, sat next to a small round table while leaning against his seat with one arm resting on the backrest looked up without showing any facial expressions. "Blackheart," he said rather coldly a bit dry in his throat. "We thought you would never come."

Blackheart smirked and heard the sound of rushing water and turned his head to a sink. He watched a stream of water emerge from the faucet and took form of a man. He too was dressed in dark grey clothes, but his skin was pale and wet with his long burnet hair that reached past his shoulders remained drenched while water dripped all the time. "Aquar," he greeted.

The man called Aquar spat water out to clear his throat. "You're not suppose to be here." he said. "You know that, right?"

There was a gust of wind and all turned their heads to see a cloud of dust enter the bar and took the form of a woman as she walked from her dust form. She too had pale skin with snow white hair that reached her mid-back while wearing a short furry white coat and a black tank top that exposed her stomach and jeans. She smirked while Blackheart smirked back. "Zephyr." he chuckled. "Been awhile."

The woman walked up to him while her heels clicked on the wooden floor and slapped him across the face. Blackheart simply stood tall to give her a blank stare. "You never tried to contact me in the dimensions." she growled. "I was lonely for all of these years." She then chuckled and her body materialized into dust to move herself away and stand next to the others. "Why have you come here?" she demaned. "What brings you to this mortal realm?"

"I'm looking for something that belongs to me." Blackheart replied while pacing around the bar. "The Contract of Souls is here on this land and I intend to claim it so I can possess the power of souls." and he looked over the shoulders of a biker member to gaze at the cards in his hands.

"What about Samukai?" Obsid wondered, fearing the Underworld King.

Blackheart stopped to close his dark eyes with a growl. The other three noticed his skin turned to a deep shade of blue while catching a glimpse of razor sharp teeth in a cheshire grin while giving a deep throaty growl. His skin returned to its normal pale shade to open his dark eyes to glare at him. With a quick step, he appeared in front of Obsid and wrapped a hand around his throat while struggled to breathe and pry his hands away. "Do not mention that name in my presense." he hissed venom. "He is no longer the ruler and cannot contain me in my prison. Not even his Rider." and released his grip.

Abosith threw a coughing fit to cough out bits of dirt and slowly pull himself up. Blackheart turned away to gaze out the window with the others behind. "Tomorrow night, we begin our search and nothing will stop us. Once I have the contract in my possession, you will all be free." He turned to meet the others. "Let's go pay an old friend a visit."

* * *

**Don't you just love understanding the villian's motives and actions to know what he wants for power. That's what builds suspension to what could happen with the hero, mainly Kai. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, leave a review if you wish to and I'll see you all next week. Even though I feel like the weeks take forever with work but hey I don't care as long I update my stories. See you all next week. :)**


	5. Asking The Girl

**Hey everyone, happy Friday, and time for an update. Last week we intorduced our main villain and now we return to Kai. And to the reviewer wondering what was wrong with Kai last week, you have to wait and see on his well being. It's coming. Anyway, enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Asking The Girl**

_A warm autumn breeze gusted across the large park of Ninjago City. Kai slowly opened his eyes to the soft air on the tip of his nose and looked around his surroundings to see he was surrounded by trees with the colors of fall dappling their leaves. He felt something soft brush his fingertips and looked to his right to see a red plaid blanket he was laying on to make his red shirt tee shirt merge with the color. He also felt weight shift on his left arm and turned his head to see who it was on his arm to smile at the person softly._

_Laurie._

_The orange ninja smiled back as she used his arm as a pillow with her fiery red hair fanned out on the blanket and grass. She shifted her body around till her head was resting on his shoulder to be closer with him. "Hi Kai," she said soothingly. "Sleep well?"_

_Kai laughed a little while kissing the crown of her forehead. His eyes were closed as he breathed in her sweet scent and opened them to stare into her icy blue eyes. "I sleep better when I know you're safe." he replied to see her smile. The fire ninja shifted his gaze to see they were alone and was quiet. "So where is everyone?" he asked._

_"They're here." Laurie replied. "They're on the other side of the park and it was your idea for us to spend time together here. Don't you remember?"_

_"Uh... Yeah." the fire ninja lied. "Sleeping tends to make forget recent things." Laurie shrugged her shoulders and continued to stare at the sky and clouds. Kai stared up with her with the sun rising high over them, but did he remember asking Laurie about alone time? Or at least waking up to head for the park with the others? Something felt odd. But the Ninja of Fire remembered about overhearing his sister and Laurie's conversation and turned his head towards her. "Laurie, can I ask you something?" he wondered while slowly swallowing the lump in his throat._

_The Ninja of Wind averted her gaze to nod. "Sure what is it?"_

_Taking a deep breath, Kai had his mouth opened to speak but stopped as the sound of a twig snapped and the sound of earth churring near them. Both turned their heads to the source and slowly and catiously sat up. Something didn't sound right or like any of the people they would know. "Stay here." he instructed to Laurie and she nodded._

_Kai pulled himself to his feet to catiously walk over to a cluster of large bushes and pushed through the branches to stop at the mouth of a large gaping hole. He slowly walked over to the ledge and peered over to see the dark chasm of a bottomless pit. "Where did that come from?" he thought. "Who would do this? Not Serpentine but maybe the skeletons. I should let the others know." But before he could walk away, he suddenly felt the ground where he was standing give way under his shoes and fell while screaming as he watched the light vanish._

_The spiky-haired teen hasn't know how long he's been falling as he couldn't see as so much as a speck of light from the surface. Without knowing and taken by surprise, Kai felt something struck his back to have him bounce off and roll roughly on the hard surface. He groaned while rubbing his sore or possible broken vertibrea and bit his lip to pry his eyes open to know his whereabouts. He could see the floating isles of rock and feel the heat of the rivers of magma pouring down from the ceiling with the entire area being a large carven. He was in the Underworld._

_"What the? H-How?" he stuttered. There was a low femenine laugh to almost be close to a witch's cackle in the darkness to make Kai turn on his heels. "Who's there?" he demanded. There was another laugh to be more menacing behind the fire ninja to make him turn to darkness. "Show yourself!"_

_Suddenly he felt something grip his shoulders to turn around and felt an unknown force to punch him away and land roughly back on his back. He groaned to slowly prompt himself to cough up bits of blood and looked to see unknown demons reveal themselves. They were all pale skin with dark eyes and ravor sharp glass-like teeth. Scales condoned over their bodies while having ghostly flames wisp off their backs. But a forth appeared and his body was very different for he had a very, very dark blues skin to be almost black with blood-red eyes. His skin was unknown to describe from the darkness for Kai to tell and had appendges fall from his head like it was hair. He simply smirked to show his sharp teeth like the others._

_Kai was for once terrified to whoever they were and flipped himself over to scoot away till his bare arms scratched against a rock wall. He felt his heart racing and swelling in his throat as the black demon chuckled deeply and lashed a claw around his throat and held him. The fire ninja struggled to breathe and pry his claws away while kicking the demon in the chest, but straggled a breath as he squeezed harder on his trechea. He felt the blood-red eyes burn into him and darkness slowly devour him as he was staring into cold evil eyes of the demons. "Welcome to my domain." he chuckled wickedly to screech loudly to the darkness. _

_The last thing Kai saw was the red eyes._

* * *

Kai woke up with a start to quickly sit up and smack his head against a beam on the ceiling to groan and carelessly rolled off off the top bunk. He yelped as gravity took hold and collied to the floor. He groaned even more to the pain radiating and tingling in his right arm and head and slide his eyes open to know his surroundings. He felt his heart ease as he was in his room and home and not in the claws of the unknown demon. "What a horrible nightmare." he muttered while fixing his spiky hair.

"Well look who's finally awake." an estatic voice chirped.

Kai turned his head arounnd to the voice and watched his brothers file into the room with their armorized suits on and saw the small smiles or smirks on their faces. "Hey guys," he yawned while rubbing his eyes with his knuckles and stretched. He turned his head around the room and noticed the light from the blinds were short than usual in the morning but felt a nagging feeling and turned his head to the clock to blink. It was past eleven in the morning. "Why didn't you tell me I slept through breakfast!?" he exclaimed while jumping to his feet.

Cole chuckled lightly and calmly rested a hand on his chest and sat him down on Lloyd's bed. Just to get him calmed down. "Because we noticed that you looked awful still like last night so we let you sleep in." he replied.

"Plus we even told my dad about you." Lucas added. "He understood and wanted to give you the day off if you needed it still or not."

"Also it was Cole's turn to make breakfast." Jay finally added to finish the continuoes sentence. "So you didn't miss out much." He gulped while nervously laughing and scratching the back of his head as he received a hard stare from Cole. "He-he." he laughed nervously.

Zane quickly stood between of Cole and Jay to defend for the lightning ninja and turned his dark blue eyes to Kai. "Our point is that we have come to check up on you and wonder if you're well enough to join us or not." he said. "But I sense you don't feel strong enough and take my advice. You should rest up some more."

Kai shook his head and gently pushed the black and white ninja aside to get up. He sighed as he doesn't want to return to that nightmare. "Nah I'm good." he replied and spun around in his fiery Spinjitzu to be dressed in his red armorized suit and received blank stares from the five of them. "I'm fine, guys." he stammered. "Really. So what's happening today?" he asked. "Training or patrolling or what?"

There was silence from the other four elemental and master of all elements as they stared at the spiky-haired teen. They believe he still looks uneasy from the way he looked last night, but he claims that he's healthy to join them. They looked at each other to shrug their shoulders. "Sensei wants us to patrol the city today and then train Lloyd afterwards." Cole replied. "He has an uneasy feeling about something and wants us to give the city a good sweep."

Kai nodded. "Alright, let's go then." he said while ignoring the grumbling sound in his empty stomach of missed breakfast from Cole. For once, he wouldn't mind eating the leftovers to settle the emptiness even if it came from the earth ninja. "Might as well pick up a snack before leaving." he laughed lightly and left with the others to the ship's stern or garage for the vehicles.

* * *

Kai felt the gentle rumble from the joysticks in his gloved hands as he drove in the driver's compartment of the Ultra Sonic Raider. So far, they haven't seen any trouble or activity that has them involved, but he hasn't been focusing much. He was more focused on his nightmare and Laurie. Kai had no idea what his dream meant or was it just an ordinary nightmare. Who knew. It just made the hairs on his neck climb to the demon's voice.

But then there was Laurie. Before everyone went out on partol, Lucas, Lloyd, and Laurie were taking the Rain, an all-terrain vehicle of their from the water ninja's old Spinjitzu vehicle, Kai tried talking to Laurie to ask her on a date, but was quiet and couldn't find his words. He wasn't stuttering like Jay would towards Nya, he really couldn't explain to himself about the other times on the near death experiences. To that, Laurie told him they'll talk about it later and to him, it sounded like she was annoyed a little. Sighing, the fire ninja returned to the present and focused on driving on patrol and took a left around the corner by adjusting the joysticks to steer.

As he drove, Kai began to feel less controlled and drew in a deep breath. _If I want to make our relationship stronger, I got to ask her out and make this work. _he thought. _Nya said it builds better and stronger relationships and we both care for each other. Especially when I just got shot and survived and the other stuff. What was it that Dad told me? _he wondered and thought it over. _If you love someone forever, you must suck it in and do it. Now or never._ He then realized it now. "That's it!"

"What is?" Jay asked in the three seats below Kai.

Kai didn't reply and simply brought the left stick back while pushing the right forward to change the momentum of the Tank's treads to quickly turn around and sped down the road. The pebbles that laid on the asphalt spluttered as they were kicked up by the powerful treads to bounce a bit as it drove off. There were even a few cars blaring their horns at them for the recent reckless driving. The other three ninja were suddenly flabbergasted on the red ninja's antics and turned their heads quizically. "What the heck are you doing, Kai!?" Cole shouted for the possible traffic accident. "Turn back now!" But the Ninja of Fire ignored the leader began to pursue after the Rain.

* * *

Laurie leaned her head against the small isolating triangle-shaped window of safety glass while her cousin drove the armored all terrain vehicle and her brother sat behind them. The girl has been quiet as the three patrolled the city while Lloyd and Lucas had a small conversation. She would like to join them, but the small viberation of the vehicle's windows felt soothingly to push things out of her mind. Like the one she had with Kai before they left, but he was quiet to explain himself. She felt a bit guilty for the way she treated toward him and should've stayed for him to explain. She now felt that he wouldn't want to talk to her when they're back.

The orange ninja sighed in quietiness so her brother and cousin couldn't hear her from the roaring engine and shifted her head from the window to gaze around the the roomy compartment. Her icy blue eyes averted to a small monitor near the dashboard and looked away, but quickly looked back as she saw a familiar vehicle racing towards them. "What the?" she gasped.

Lucas adjusted the joysticks by his legs to steer his vehicle to drive out of the city and turned his gaze to meet with the wind ninja's and all three turned their heads to Laurie's window as the Tank drove beside them off the road. "Laurie, we need to talk." Kai's voice rang throught the radio installed in the vehicles.

Laurie was a bit stunned. Now was a really good time? Couldn't he just wait? Then again, she should've let him explain himself back on the Bounty. But still, was this a good time? The wind ninja looked at the fire ninja and grabbed the radio's microphone and pressed it. "Now?" she asked. "Is this a good time? Couldn't you have just waited till we got back?"

"Look I know we could've waited," Kai agreed. "But this is important."

"What's more important than almost killing us back there, Kai!?" Jay screamed. "I want to stay alive for my date with Nya tonight!"

Kai ignored the lightning ninja's exaggeration and continued to race along with the Rain. "Laurie, please," he begged slightly. "Can we just talk about this real quick? Just pull over please." He could see the girl become uneasy and simply pulled back to drive on the opposite lane of the road to be on Lucas' side. "Lucas, can you please pull over so I can talk to Laurie real quick. I have to tell her this before I forget."

Lucas was now the one stunned and flabbergasted to think of a solution. He looked at Laurie and noticed she looked embarrassed and uneasy and looked at Kai through his window to shake his head and grabbed the microphone. "Sorry Kai," he said. "This can be dealt with till we get home."

Laurie smiled a little underneath her mask to know her cousin was on her side of this awkward situation. She looked up to gasp and quickly snatched the device from the grey ninja. "Kai, look out!" she cried.

Kai turned his head to see the fuel carrier truck blaring its horn and quickly pulled off the road to avoid a collusion while ignoring the frightened screams of his friends and returned back on the road. Everyone except for him felt relief wash over, but the three ninja in the vehicle with the red ninja were still petrified to find their voices. What was the fire ninja trying to do? Kill them? Cole shook to his senses and turned to Kai. "Kai, quit trying to kill us and stop!" he demanded.

The Ninja of Fire ignored him and flipped a few switches and felt no control of the vehicle anymore. "Zane, take the wheel." he commanded. "I have to do this the hard way."

"What for?" the ice ninja inquired and grabbed the joysticks to drive.

Kai didn't reply and flipped another switch to have the latch hiss open while the vehicle still drove and cautiously stood up. He waited for his time and hunched his legs and jumped from the vehicle to land on the front of the Rain. The Ninja of Wind yelped a little like Kai was a bug on the windshield and was now scared for his stunt. Lucas taken by surprise and quickly pulled the acclerator back and joysticks as well to hear the tires screeching to a halt. Kai smirked underneath his mask as his plan worked and jumped off as the armored vehicle stopped and landed in front of it. There was a small hiss as the compartment latch opened up and back with the seats rising after it for the passengers to climb in and out.

"Are you out of your mind?!" Laurie screeched while removing her mask, worried for him. She climbed out of the vehicle to hop down and stomped towards him. She even ignored the car horns blaring behind their vehicles. "You've could've gotten yourself killed. Who's to say you won't walk away from this unharmed, Kai. I-" She stopped as her lips were pressed against Kai's and lost her train of thought.

Kai released his lips from Laurie's to see her lovestruck face with a small smile on her face. He smiled as he got her attention now. "Laurie, I know what you're thinking and I want you to understand this." he began. "I sorta overheard you and Nya last night and know what both of you were worried about." He noticed her icy blue eyes were a bit wide when he easedropped on their conversation. "But, but," he continued. "I'm willingly want to fix this to explain myself more if we try Nya's suggestion. Talk this out." He took a deep breath. "Laurie Gamradon, will you go out with me?" he asked while grabbing her hands.

Laurie was now shocked to speak after all he done to gain her attention and ask her out on a date. She thought he was crazy at first, but from what she heard from hime may give her the chance to hear his explanation. She smiled a little and nodded. "Alright I will." she said. "Double date with Jay and Nya tonight at the Spinette Tower. Seven o'clock. Don't be late." She smiled to him softly.

A smile tugged on the fire ninja's face to the answer and cheered in truimph. He done it. He asked the girl he loves out to build their relationship much stronger. Laurie laughed a little to his victory dance and quickly pecked his cheek and retreated back to the Rain and drove off with her brother and cousin after the hatch covered over them. Kai was now alone. "Huh-hem." someone coughed. Kai stopped and turned around to gulp as he was recieving death glares from the ice, lightning, and earth ninja as their arms were crossed tightly over their chests. He chuckled lightly and nervously to understand their anger and probably won't hear the end of it. But he didn't care as he finally had a date tonight.

* * *

Night has fallen with the moon rising high in the sky, but no stars shown from the light pollution of the city lights. The park was quiet as four figures quietly stalked down the path surrounded by vegetation. Lights from the lamp posts lit their path while they were silent. But the lights dimmed to the darkness with a small rumble of thunder rolling in and the four stopped. Not one flinched as they saw an elder in a black and red kimono with a wooden staff in ancient hieroglyphics of the Underworld and skull on top under the small stone bridge. They knew who he was.

"You're not suppose to be here." the elder stated. Blackheart looked into his dark eyes to stare him down. Samukai huffed and looked away from his creation. "Boys... and girl." he greeted to them to receive a hiss from Zephyr. "There you are. I've been wondering where you were hiding all of these years."

"You are foolish to be here, old man." Blackheart sneered. "You are extinct from possessing ancient power by mistake. You are dead and can't stop me from finding my prize. The Contract of Souls."

The elder huffed to his old creation in the Underworld. Sure he was gone, but was still in limbo as a spirit since he was an old alchemist of powers. Like a witch or wizard, but more powerful. "That may be true." he agreed while admiring his staff, voice still cracking and raspy. "But my spirit still roams the lands. But I do know someone will stop you." That perked the demon's heads up slightly. "My Ghost Rider will hunt you all down and put a stop to your doings. You don't know what you're dealing with on these souls you seek."

Blackheart chuckled to smirk to the deceased skeleton king. And Samukai didn't even react to his sinister laugh. "You would even have your Bounty Hunter after me." he grumbled. "But note this, he'll be on our side and you can't control him. He won't stop me." The lights erupted to life from the lamp posts to illuminate the park. And Samukai winced to the intensity while shielding his eyes. "Not even you."

Samukai kept wincing to the light to hiss a little. "Just wait." he said. "He'll be here. Ready tonight. And he'll stop you." There was a rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning and Samukai was gone. Blackheart simply chuckled and continued leading the way with the others following.

* * *

**Ooh the time has come now for our fire ninja. I wonder how this will go for him. But Kai also has a date now, how will it go for him as well to what Samukai has planned for him. The Ghost Rider is coming. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, leave a review if you want to, I also have an DeviantArt account, Packerfan95, if you wish to see some stuff I put up for Ninjago, not much I have on there yet, and I'll see you all next week. :)**


	6. Risen

**Hey everyone, happy Friday as I have a new update of my story of Kai as the Ghost Rider and finally glad this chapter is being posted as it's the one I'm always excited for with a soundtrack to happen. Trust me, it'll go perfect with Kai. The link is on YouTube, watch?v=2xgUr74VvvI and when you see the icon, *, you're gonna feel chills on your spine. Enjoy. **

* * *

**Chapter 5: Risen**

Soft piano tunes filled the quiet air. The orange ninja glanced around the swiveling tower restaurants to observe her surroundings more. Cream colored walls gave a soothing atmosphere in the low lights. The restaurant was large and circular on a tower and slowly rotated to give out a full view of Ninjago City. The restaurant may be fancy even to its looks and feel, but it gave out decent prices to teens who want to experience luxary.

The wind ninja sat nervously in her seat while adjusting her new silk dress Nya had forced her into since her old one was torn and ruined from a ball before and stared out in the window. She watched the city move in a slow pace as she and everyone inside rotated. She had to admit though that the view was breath-taking. She looked away to sigh and looked at the empty seat next to her. Where was Kai? He hasn't shown himself ten minutes after seven and it was making her nervous. Her first date and Kai hasn't shown himself.

"Don't worry, Laurie." Nya said reassuring. Laurie looked up from across the table to see the samurai in her red silk dress with gold accents with Jay next to her in his luscious blue dress shirt and black jacket. The samurai could tell the red-haired girl was nervous, but hopefully has a reason why her brother was late. "I'm sure he's nervous too since it's his first date. He'll be here."

Laurie gave her a small smile and turned her gaze back to the window to watch the city rotate and the small clouds of thunder in the distance. Where was he?

* * *

"You cannot let fear get the best of you." Kai stated to himself in front of the bathroom mirror. He glared at himself as he felt nervous about the date and took calm breaths. This was his first date and can see how it's like when Jay retells his dates with Nya. Shaky body, sweaty palms, rapid heartbeat, practically almost everything the fire ninja is enduring. That would explain why he was late. Sighing, he took another deep breath. "You cannot let fear get the best of you."

"Looks like someone is nervous." Cole's voice chirped.

Kai felt his body jump from the quietness and quickly turned around to the door of the bathroom to see the other elemental ninjas, except for Jay, smirking at him. He drew in a deep breath to calm his rapid heart. "Really guys?" he barked. "I'm already nervous enough and don't need anymore from you."

Lucas chuckled. "Yeah we know." he agreed. "We're just messing around with you. Making a brother nervous is part of the family's job. We try it on Jay a lot, but he shows his confidence well. We thought you see it in you too after the way you asked Laurie out, but nope."

Kai gave them a small glare to roll his eyes and grabbed his leather jacket, that his father gave him for his sixteenth birthday before his death, and threw it over his red polo shirt. He looked down before he zipped it up as he looked a bit awkward to be dressed with dark blue jeans on with his shirt because he couldn't find his dress pants from the ball he and the others attended before Lucas woke up from a four month coma from an incident of a mast falling from the Black Bounty collapsing onto him. He shook his head to forget about it and think of an excuse later while he wasn't dressed properly. "Yeah whatever." he grumbled and zipped it up halfway.

"Just don't come back with my sister's cooties." Lloyd said while crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't want you spreading them around."

The fire ninja chuckled to the boy's exaggeration of a rumored disease young boys find as an epidemic. "I'll try to keep that promise." he said playfully. "If I do get cooties however, you better hide. You don't know how contagious that can be." Lloyd's eyes grew wide and nervously looked at the others to see them smirk along with the fire ninja and quickly ran out of the room with everyone laughing. Kai sighed after catching his breath with the others. "Seriously though, can I have some quick alone time?" he begged. "I still feel nervous."

The other three remaining ninja sighed while rolling their eyes with a small smile. "As you wish, brother." Zane said and left with the others. "Five watermelon Jolly Ranchers says he makes it."

"You're on, Zane!" Lucas and Cole challenged the ice ninja.

Kai glared at the back of their heads as they were gambling on his date. He didn't care for now. He'll have to take care of them the next time. Sighing, the Ninja of Fire turned back to the mirror and drew in a deep breath while leaning on the sink counter. "You cannot let fear get the best of you." he said to himself while jabbing a finger to the mirror. He now felt confident. But he started to feel warm and noticed his hand started to become a pinkish red color. He then noticed both hands were the same hue and began becoming darker and burning. He was shocked and quickly turned the faucet on and ran his hands under the rushing cold water noticed steam was clouding from his palms. Curious, he lifted his hands up to feel the burning heat disappear from his hands to their normal skin tone. He was puzzled. _Odd. That's...unnatural._ he thought.

"_Kai..." _a voice breezed like an icy knife. The fire ninja felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up to the unnatural voice. He scanned around his surroundings to find nothing. Were the guys playing a joke on him? "_Out in the alley." _the same icy voice said. Kai felt his body taking course and slowly transversed himself out of the bedroom and ship. The cool air brushed his face as he gazed around Ninjago City and heard a rumbling engine. He walked over to the starboard rail and jumped off to land on the tarred roof of Darreth's dojo and looked over the fire escape to blink and climbed down to the main ground.

The fire ninja slowly approached the idling motorcycle that stood in the center of the alley with its engine clattering. Then he recognized it was the same motorcycle from before in the warehouse when he got shot. _How did that get here?_ he wondered and reached a hand over it. He felt over the seat to see if he could feel a presence but felt nothing. He glanced around the bike and felt a chill run down his spine to turn and glare at someone. "You." he growled.

The elder in the black kimono with snow white hair simply smiled with a hint of smirking on the edge of his lips. His cane tapped on the asphalt as he advanced toward spiky haired burnet. "Hello Kai." he greeted with his icy breath.

The fire ninja took himself a defensive stance while retreating slowly away in a tight circle. "Stay away from me." he demanded. The two kept forming a tight circle until both stopped. "It's been you that has been keeping me alive. I thought you were dead after possessing four of the Golden Weapons."

Samukai looked down to scratch on the metal skull of his cane. "Oh I may be dead," he replied and averted his red eyes up. "but it doesn't mean my spirit can roam this realm still." He simply chuckled to make Kai's skin crawl. "And of course I've been keeping you alive. You gave me something personal to save another life." He then looked down to the dark red with flame accent motorcycle. "Nice bike." he complemented.

Kai did not dare flinch and glared red hot daggers to the humanized hunched skeleton. The murderer of his parents and kidnapper of his sister. Angirly, the fire ninja kept shooting glares on the mention of personal to him. _My soul_. he thought. "What do you want from me?" he growled.

The skeleton king stopped scratching his cane to glance up from the motorcycle. "It is time for you to pay off your debt." he replied, calmly. Kai eyed him confused. "A creation of mine named Blackheart somehow escaped his prison and the Underworld after he tried to overthrow me off my throne and I imprisoned him. But now that he escaped, he seeks for something very dangerous and powerful. A contract worth of a thousand souls to obtain. I cannot let him seek those souls or else he'll take control of both realms. Yours and mine. It's time for the Ghost Rider to ride."

Kai snorted. The elder sounded ludicrous about everything like Sensei Wu would sometimes. He figured that he was appearing into his life again to haunt him. The skeleton should be dead and not bothering him. He huffed and looked at the clock hanging on a window of a shop across the street to grumble. He was gonna be late for his date. "Look," he sneered to him coldly. "You may be still haunting me and have taken something from me, but I don't care about your rider deal. Whoever this Blackheart is we'll take of him, but not now. I have a date to attend to. And I said I won't be late." He looked at the bike and swung his legs over the seat and grabbed the handle bars. "Like I have a choice to do this."

"Oh but you don't." Samukai retorted. Kai looked at him weirdly but suddenly he felt like he had no control of his body. His hands were positioned correctly on the handle bars and his feet were firmly planted on the foot rests. He tried to free himself from the bike but he felt glued or magnetized; trapped. The fire ninja gazed at Samukai and shot glares at him. "You work for me and you must pay your debt." the skeleton said and backed away. "Complete your mission and I will repay you your soul." and raised his cane and tapped it on the asphalt and vanished.

Tires screeched loudly on the road with smoke rising and chunks of rocks were dug up by the tires. Kai was scared as it wasn't him the one driving as the bike was taking off to turn and race down the road. He could feel torque and acceleration build up as he raced down the road and felt his vision become all of a blur with the sound of horns echoing in his ears. He couldn't believe he was racing faster...than light or sound maybe. He felt the bike jump to have the front tire raise up and noticed the tire was red and flames flickered off and the wheel planted itself back to the road. He looked over his shoulder to gasp at the single line of fire trailing behind and couldn't find his voice scream. Almost as if he wouldn't need to. He watched as if time had depleted and watched small deciduous trees that grew in the concrete sidewalks for decoration erupt into flames while the metal parking meters bend to the unknown heat.

What was going on?

* * *

Outside the city, a patrol man, James Johnson, laid low hiding behind the billboard of the city limits while sitting on his motorcycle. He felt a strong windchill brush past him and quickly bundled himself tighter to his coat to block the wind. Being on patrol, he had to be on the lookout for any speeding drivers, but none have shown. He sighed while taking his helmet off to scratch the back of his head and brushed his shaggy brown hair from the helmet. "Slow night." he mumbled. "Lucky Melody to stay back at the station." and slipped his helmet back on.

The sound of roaring thunder of a motorcycle in the distance slowly made him poke his head out from hiding to hear it from the city. And it sounded like it was getting closer. Taking instincts, he pulled out his speedometer radar gun to pull the trigger to track the driver's speed. His eyes grew wide as the digital numbers were recording higher than sixty-fives miles per hours and the radar gun was still climbing higher. Something was wrong. He heard the engine of the motorcycle coming closer and looked up to see a flash of fire pass his spot at an alarming speed and an unknown force pushed him and was flung off his bike. James quickly pulled himself back up to hear an evil laugh from the fire and was flabbergasted to not know what to do next. Follow it or what? He didn't know what to do as he watched the fire blaze on the billboard.

* * *

Frank Fritz held his latern high as he walked alone in the trainyard. All was quiet for him but heard an unfamiliar noise outside. He's been a conductor and groundskeeper since he started working, but never thought there would be anyone else besides him at night. So who was there? The conductor walked over to the walkway of the courtyard that held some tracks for any maintence to attend but stopped as he saw four unknown figures in the middle. "Hey!" he barked. "You can't be here."

Blackheart stopped and slowly turned with the other demons. He could sense the conductor's fear from his dark eyes. _I can sense your fear. _he smirked to him. "There used to be a cemetery here." he stated.

"Yeah." the conductor replied nervously. "L-Long time ago."

"Where is it?" he pried.

Fritz felt a chill run down his spine as he was slowly being surrounded by two males and female with the leader walking up to him. What do they want from him? He turned his gaze to the pale one with water dripping from his hair like he took a recent swim and back to Blackheart. "Over at the monastery in Ninjago City." he replied with a nervous voice. "They would know. Look you shouldn't be even be here."

Blackheart stopped in front of him without as much as cracking a smile or anything. "That's what they all tell me." he said coldly and placed his hand on the center of his chest. The conductor gasped while struggling to breathe a gulp of air as his eyes sunk into his skull while his body was turning purple with black veins and collapzed. The demon cracked his neck and turned his head to the sound of thunder of an engine racing near them. He smirked while the other three demons flinched a little to the new presence. "He's here." he smiled.

* * *

Kai felt the bike reducing its speed as it entered a trainyard and manuevered through the parked train cars. He looked around to wonder why he was brought here when he had no control of his body at all. No matter how much he tried to pry himself free. Being glued onto this motorcycle has taken him to a wrong turn than what he wanted. He'd wish he could get out of the mess and be on his date with Laurie. He figured she was gonna be extremely furious at him for being late when they're trying to build their relationship stronger. _I am so hooped._ he thought.

The bike directed Kai into a garage that repaired any locomotives and suddenly stopped. Kai yelped as he was flung off the motorcycle and grunted as he slid on the rough concrete until friction stopped him.

*****An unknown heat began to blossom inside Kai's body to have smoke vent from his eyes and quickly picked himself up. He grunted as he dug the heel of his hands into his eyes like if someone threw sand into his eyes and looked down to take shaky steps and his feet ignited into a blaze. He took another shaky step to leave fiery imprints while his body shook to the uncontrollable heat. Being the Ninja of Fire, he can withstand the heat, but not anything like this. The fire ninja felt the heat inside increase in his body to no longer grunt, but scream in pain to see his world erupt in flames.

He stopped screaming to the pain but only to crackle a laugh as the pain still spread. He screamed though as his hands were starting to chip off skin to reveal bleach white bones and in his reflection from a window he could see his eyes were two orbs of fire. The pain soon passed to make him diabotically laugh to echo around the room as his head was erupted in an orange blaze with his face deterierating to a white skull. The skeleton's frame blazed with fire while it held its clothes still and lifted his head to roar.

The Ghost Rider has risen.

* * *

**And so it begins. Kai is now the Ghost Rider and left you all in a cliffhanger. Mwahahaha! Sorry but I get excited when the transformations happen to every Marvel hero movie I've seen and I'm glad to do another one like when I did Cole's Hulk transformation. Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed the transformation of Kai, leave a review in the end, and I'll see you all next week. :)**


	7. Look Into My Eyes

**Hey everyone, happy Friday and time for an update. Last week was exciting because Kai went through his fiery transformation and now is going for his first night as the Ghost Rider. How will this go especially when he's late for his date with the wind ninja now. So many questions to know and find out in this chapter.**

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**Chapter 6: Look Into My Eyes**

The air was dark and silent with the low howl of the wind. The only source of light in the atmosphere was the moon blazing its bright white light. Like a crescent of light. A man chuckled darkly as he stepped out of the shadows while clapping his pale blue hands calmly and smoothly. Like a small welcoming party as he watched a flaming skeleton storm out of the garage. He stopped across from him with a small smirk playing as he was unfazed. "Looking for someone?" Blackheart chuckled.

Kai growled while pointing a bony finger at the demon. "Back to the Underworld." he growled through his new and dark demonic voice. The flames flickered off his skull as he glared through his eye sockets.

"We're not going to have a meaningful conversation then, are we?" the demon assumed, still chuckling under his breath and combing his black hair back. He was toying with the bounty hunter.

"You're going down."

Blackheart turned his head away, but kept his dark eyes locked on him. "I guess not then." he said. A gust of wind brushed past with the face of a woman in fog and dust, materialized her body to grab Kai and lift him away to vanish. The fire ninja was late to respond and felt his neck being wrapped around by chains and hung still as lynching. His fire extinguished instantly. Blackheart laughed in victory to the swaying skeleton on the chain-links of the defeated Ghost Rider. Too easy.

The skeleton swayed and dangled by the chains wound around his vertibrea spine without moving an inch. But then suddenly, his entire bony frame erupted in an orange-yellowish blaze to ignite his skull and reached the chains to wretch himself down and unwound the links to clutch in his hand as a new weapon. Blackheart was taken by surprise as the Rider was alive from the first attack and stood still. Kai's feet stomped loudly on the gravel ground and the links rattled in his hand. The fire ninja growled as he came closer to the demon to splash his foot into a puddle, but then realized he couldn't move another foot. He struggled to free his foot from the puddle to see another face extend to gargle a roar. The skeleton heard something racing down to lift his head to see two flashes of light and disappeared as he was crushed between a semitruck and a locomotive. Bones crushed by the sound and Blackheart simply and walked away.

Now too easy.

The engine hissed with steam venting from the crippled engine and fender. The cabin door burst open and dark brown boots stomped on the steel grate steps with bits of earth and gravel grinding into the pores. Osid nodded to himself as he looked at the damage to shrug his shoulders. "Ain't so tough." he huffed and jumped down to spat at the ground and walked to join the others.

The other three demons were within his view as he walked up to them, but he felt something hot grip his shoulder to stop. It felt bony as well. He felt frozen to move a muscle to gulp. "Hey dirtbag." a deep and dark voice barked, hot and venomous.

The earth demon was forced to face a skull to gasp as he was still alive and took a skay step back. Kai wrapped the chain-links around his right knuckle and clenched it into a fiery fist and swung it against his cheek. He slid on the gravel ground and quickly prompt himself to steal a glance from Kai, but couldn't look away. He could smell burning flesh and dirt as the blow left a small hollow crater in his cheek with ambers flickering on the wound. Kai growled and ran his hands through the coil of chain and the links blazed an reddish-orange glow and burned. Obsid was now scared. "Have mercy!" he begged while slowly crawling back.

The skeleton growled while the flames on his skull flickered as he stared into the demon's eyes. He gazed at him skeptically as he looked rather familiar. Shaggy black hair and musclar chest. It made Kai remind him of Cole somehow. Like the same features of the Ninja of Earth, but felt evil coursing in his body. To which made the fire ninja his prey and not one of his brothers. "Sorry." Kai sneered while shaking his skull head slowly with the flames flickering in rythm. "All out of mercy." He lashed the chain to stretch as if it was a whip with small portions of the links wrapping around his wrist. He swung the fiery chain over his head to create a spindle of fire and whipped it around the demom, pinning his arms to his sides. The fire ninja smirked internally to his capture.

The earth demon screeched in pain to the burning pain blossoming in his body. He groaned as he fell to his knees as the chain-links were literally burning inside him. Like he was being cooked alive. He grunted to lift his head while his skin was becoming charcoal black with ripples of flames caking the cracks. "Help me!" he cried out, his voice echoing and deep wit his glass-like fangs baring. But his friend were gone. Obsid was stunned that they left and not rather fight the new Ghost Rider and groaned more as his body was hardening like ceramic clay in a kiln until he was a sculpture. And with a quick tug of the links, he shattered like glass and become one with the earth.

With a quick snap on the wrist, the chains were whipped and it wounded itself over his lift shoulder and by his right side; life his old ninja attire suit with the rope tassel and fire emblem of his element. After he rolled his shoulders and felt the chain snug around his chest, he brought a finger phalangie and thumb to his jaw and surprisingly whisted for a skeleton without lips. The rumble sound of a motorcycle screeched as some supernatural force had poccession of the bike to travel the narrow passage of the train and truck and parked in front of Kai without a kickstand. The skeleton scanned around the dull red bike to huff and quickly placed his hands on the gas tank to roar as he channeled his new powers to the bike.

Metal whined and groaned and erupted into flames as it went through a change of metamorphasis. The back wheel grew a wheel covers with small spikes growing on the spine and lowered to reach the ground almost. The color was slowly turning to black with skeleton like hands clawing from the seat to wrap themselves around the gas tank. The handle bars grew low and stretched to elbow length while the headlight shifted into a silver skull of an unknown beast with fire blazing from its eyes. And the telescopic forks that help steer the bike burst into flames and morph into chain-links and both wheels burst into flames without melting the rubber.

Kai exaimed his new motorcycle to chuckle as it looked like it was a bike that broke free from the Underworld and flicked some of his fire from his skull to take a seat. He gripped both handle bars to feel the same power ignite the engine and twisted the throttle to hear the engine whine to speed off. A trail of fire even followed behind him as he rode into the ride.

It was time to hunt.

* * *

Piano music filled the air as the night grew. Laurie sighed while picking at her starter salad and taking sips of her water to watch the elevator doors open and hoped. But all throughout the date, he never showed. Not even a call from her comm-link. Where was he? He's been late for almost an hour now and hasn't show. The wind ninja sighed again as she was starting to become impatient and...heartbroken.

Across the table, Nya could sense the girl feeling lost and helpless. She could tell that her date hasn't shown and was...betrayed. It wasn't suppose to happen. If her brother loves Laurie, he would be here with them and not be late at all. What was he doing?

The samurai sighed under her breath to finish the last of her salad and stared at the girl. She felt a hand wrapping around her to glance at Jay who was giving her a comforting smile with his hazel eyes growing soft. She had to smile back for his comfot, but it soon disappeared as she watched Laurie look more and more depressed. Jay even felt pity for her. _Get your butt over here, Kai. Or else I'll be kicking it before you beg for mercy._ Nya thought in anger.

* * *

The motorcycle roared as it raced down the road with the thin trail of fire following behind and extinguishing alone. Kai followed his senses as he drove near Ninjago City to search. He could sense and feel the the three remaining demons' fears after what he done to the first demon. So they were hiding now. But where? He also felt like he had forgotten something, but couldn't remember or gain control of his body. What was it then?

"Help!" a female voice cried. "Somebody help!"

The skeleton heard the cry and quickly stopped the demonic bike on a bridge that stretched over a river that lead to the ocean outside of the city and hopped off his bike to storm over to the source. Who was in need of help? He looked over the railing to see a girl in her teen years with black hair and green grey eyes, dressed with a yellow sweatwhirt and skirt with a backpack by her feet. But she was in danger for a mugger had a knife out. The girl struggled to free herself from him to call for help, but froze to the knife near her neck. "Shut up or else I'll make it worse." the mugger threatened. "Just give me your money."

Kai felt his skull blazing angrily to have the fire burn brighter. He was harming the innocent as a sinner. Inside his head, he knew he to resolve to save the innocent. Angirly and boiling to the evil, he swung over the railing to roar.

The mugger and girl stopped thrashing to gaze up and were struck in fear to the sight of a flaming skeleton above and landed after jumping off. Kai watched the troublemaker release his grip on the girl and jerked his head aside to leave. The girl didn't know whether or not to thank him but quickly grabbed her bag. "Th-Thanks." she said scaredily and quickly swung a high kick to his abdomen and ran.

The mugger groaned while clutching his stomach and cursed under his breath to the pain and averted his gaze to shake at the skeleton. Kai growled with the fire blazing brightly. He even started to feel...hungry. "You," he growled while directing a bony finger at him. "Guilty." He stomped over to him and grabbed hold of his sweatshirt to throw him against the concrete wall without scorching his clothes to a blaze as he watched shake in fear. "Look into my eyes," he demanded like a Hypnobrai serpentine. The mugger quickly reacted and drove his knife into his shoulder. The fire ninja turned his head to the blade and growl as the mugger withdrew it to watch the metal melt to the heat like liquid magma. "Your soul is stained by the blood of the innocent." Kai growled as he burned into him and the mugger gazed into the dark sockets. "Feel their pain." The mugger screamed as he stared more and more into the sockets and lost himself in a fiery void.

Kai watched each event unfold in the mugger's memory. Breaking and entering on an innocent family. Shooting someone to injury them to hold up a robbery. The almost attempt of mugging the girl. The more he watched event, the more hungry he became to sear his soul. He was savoring it now. He shouted as he watched the mugger's face dissolve to a skull and felt his soul burn to an unknown heat.

The fire ninja felt the job was finished and watched his vision return to normal to smirk. The mugger was still and almost lifeless. But his eyes were gone. What was replaced were two chunks of charcoal with heat escaping from the cracks. Kai huffed and released his grip and watch him fall limp. He blinked once and was gone.

The deed was done.

* * *

Laurie sighed as she wait and waited for Kai, but he still hasn't shown. The wind ninja looked away to watch teenage couples dance hand in hand on the small dance floor. She could see how happy they all were in each others arms and making tight squares together. She began to feel hollow without being with Kai and looked away to bury her face into her hands to sigh.

Jay and Nya stared at the poor girl and were out of options to cheer her up. The samurai sighed and grabbed her hand to cheer her up hopefully. "I'm sure he'll come." she said reassuring. "Really. Maybe...he gotten lost."

The red-haired girl stopped to lift her head to began to feel fire swell in her chest and jerked her hand back. "You know what," she barked quietly. "First you say he's nervous and now lost, I don't care. If he doesn't show, he won't come." She could feel small wisps of air whirl around her and whip her hair and realized her powers were being controlled by her anger and quickly grabbed her small handbag and threw it over her shoulder. "Enjoy the rest of your evening together." and walked away. The girl could see wondering eyes gazing at her for her outburst and feel the air shift around her and quickly slipped into an elevator as the doors closed. She was now glad to be alone.

She punched the button to the ground floor and quietly let tears slip down her cheeks as she never felt this way before in her life. Being dumped. She loves Kai, but why would he ever do this to her? Even when it was his idea to ask her out to build their relationship like Jay and Nya. She sniffled and felt the air calm after taking deep breaths and reached into her bag to pull her earpiece and placed it near her ear. "Lucas," she called for her cousin. "Are you up?"

There was a long silence then a groan followed after. "Yeah." the water ninja replied. "I'm up-*yawn*-still. Shrimp and I are just getting out of our movie. Why what's up?"

"Nothing." Laurie lied. Oh how she hated lying but she rather not tell why her date never showed. She ran her fingers through her hair to move a lock behind her ear. "I'm having a rough night. Can you two pick me up at the Spinette Tower. I need a ride."

"Yeah yeah." Lucas said comfortly. "We'll be there. Give us like ten to fifteen minutes."

"Alright." she said and removed it from her ear and tossed it into her bag felt the elevator reduce and the doors opened. Laurie quickly transversed through the lobby and sat on a bench under an awny to wait for her brother and cousin. She sighed while wiping her tears away and hung her head. She could feel a combination of anger and sorrow in her body and couldn't detemine to whether or not be angry at Kai. But she knew she had to now. "Why Kai?" she murmured.

* * *

Dawn was approaching as Kai drove through the windy road of a cemetery. The first streak of sunlight broke through the horizon and blossom trees and struck the skull. The fire ninja heard the motorcycle shortening with the fire trail flickering behind and finally stopped to fall to his knees. Fire engulfed the bike as it slowly transformed to a normal red fire streak bike like before. Kai groaned and felt his body cry in agony as he could feel his fire cool and his skin growing back over his bones. The transformation grew painful for him as the skin began to reshow his facial features and spiky hair return to normal as he cried out from his demonic voice to his normal voice. He staggered to pick himself up, but rather crawled on his elbows to two gravestones with his parent's names engraved into the slick and smooth lava stone and slumped.

His chocolate brown eyes burned to the light and his body was now worn and tired. He heard footsteps and a silhoutte of a man due to his blurry and unscewered vision. But once he saw him in the shadows, he could see the clothes dressed like he was an old prospect miner with a cowboy hat adorned over his greasy grey and white hair and slammed a spade shovel near his head. He heard the man chuckle. "Morning Bonehead." he mused and Kai saw his world turn black.

* * *

**Well...what did you think? I mean sure it's a remake like most stories I seen on this site but hey it's fun with this story. So Kai went through his first night as the Rider and destroyed on of the demons but not his target. And Laurie is starting to become angry with the fire ninja after a horrible date, how will that resolve later in the story? Find out next week to know what will happen to the fire ninja. Have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week. :)**


	8. Brimestone, Sulfur, and Anger

**Hey everyeone, happy Friday and time for an update. I really dont' have much to say except that I'm not a typical person to add in swear words but in a moment like this, I had to because it felt funny to me. So warning to those that don't appreciate foul language. Anyway, enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 7: Brimestone, Sulfur, and Anger **

Sunlight of dawn broke through the curtains of a bedroom, greeting a new day. Dust particles suspend themselves in the beams of light as the rays stretched themselves along the room until they focused onto the face of a girl. She groaned as the light shined onto her closed eyes and threw the orange comforter over her head. She tossed and turned to finally give up on the sleep she wanted and slowly sat up with her messy red hair sliding on her shoulders with the ponytie hanging on the ends.

Laurie yawned while using her knuckles to rub her eyes to wake them further to wince at the direct sunlight and quickly jerked her head away. Her body felt stiff and tired as she groggily fixed her hair to a ponytail and stopped as she remembered she wasn't a morning person to fix herself early and let her hair fall back down. She sighed while combing her fingers through her fiery red hair and stopped as she remembered something else.

Kai.

The orange ninja began to feel her chest swell up with fire like last night after the fire ninja never showed himself to dinner for a date. Even when they're building their relationship to become stronger. How rude. She climbed out of her bed and hoped he was on board the ship so she could rant her anger at him as she left her room to storm down the hall and entered the guy's room without knocking. She glared around to notice that no one was around and quickly turned on her heels to search for them and hopefully Kai. The Ninja of Wind transversed down the halls with the pant legs of her black pajama pants wisping behind with her hair as she could feel her powers being controlled by her anger like last night after storming out of the restuarant and stopped as she heard something in the living room to poke her head in.

She gazed around the living room to find everyone, watching the morning news with Gale Gossip retaling the other nights rescue mission, all except for Kai. He wasn't around. Where was he? She looked around to noticed everyone was still dressed in their pajamas as if they had woken up recently as they looked groggy and tired, but still walked over to them, furious. "Lucas," she barked. "Cover Lloyd's ears."

The water ninja turned his head to see his cousin glaring hot dagger in her eyes as he knew the cause of her anger. It was about last night after he picked her up but never been told for the reason. He simply nodded and placed both hands over his still tired cousin's ears as he sat on his lap on the bean bag chair. "Okay." he informed her.

Laurie nodded and drew in a deep breath. Usually she's not the type of girl to swear, but at a time like this, she'll have to. "Has anyone seen Kai?" she barked. "He's got a date with my foot up his ass for standing me up last night without telling me."

Everyone turned their heads to her gaze about her outburst and shook their heads. Laurie grumbled in anger and annoyance now. "We're sorry Laurie," Zane said as he sat on the floor next to the couch to meditate. "But we haven't see our brother at all after he left. We thought he was with you, Jay, and Nya." He turned his head to Cole and Lucas. "I guess you two have won the bet then." The grey and black ninja's eyes grew wide and motioned their hands to stop him from talking but catiously looked at the wind ninja scaredly. Zane realized their reactions and stopped. "Oh... Uh..."

Laurie felt her jaw drop as her cousin and the leader were gambling about Kai on her date and glared at them. She'll need to deal with them later and drew in a deep breath. "Well he wasn't." the red-haired girl retorted to walk across the room and sat on the lounge chair. "I waited and waited for him but he never came." She sighed to droop her head as she couldn't hold her anger long enough as the coffee table started to rattle with small wisps of wind howling. She heard the sound of tapping on the wooden floor to see her uncle, Lucas' father, walking past and heard the howling wind stop. "Uncle, have you seen Kai?"

Sensei Wu stopped at the doorway to shake his head. "I'm sorry, my niece." he said soothingly and wise. "But I haven't seen my missing student anywhere." Laurie sighed to look away. The elder turned his head to train his grey eyes on the television to hum in deep concentration. "Perhaps you should consider turning up the volume to hear about this."

The Ninja turned their heads toward the television to blink as the events unfold. A long trail creviced into the middle of the road of the historic district of Ninjago City with smoke still dispersing in the air. Smoke filled around the small burnt trees that grew in the streets as police were puzzled around it with the twisted parking meters. Cole, being the closest to the remote control as he leaned against the couch on the floor, swiped it from the arm rest Jay was at and adjusted the volume to allow everyone to take in the update from Gale.

"Police are still puzzled about the unnatural events that were reported this morning." Gale announced to the camera with the microphone in hand. "Burnt tress, disfigured parking meters, flipped cars, and this long trail in the road. Has some new threat entered the heart of our beloved city or is it something that been happening with the recent Serpentine sightings? Are our streets safe for our children or not? Where are the Ninja?"

"On a related story," Gale continued. "The murderer of an assault at a tavern outside the city is still at large as he struck again. Police have found the body of Frank Fritz outside the trainyard early this morning when the wife of the conductor called to report him missing for never returning home last night. We cannot allow to show the images of the body, but all we can say that it was the same murderer that had attacked a biker gang the other night. More of the story will be at seven tonight. I'm Gale Gossip on set."

Cole pressed his thumb on the mute button to hear the complete silence in the room. The earth ninja looked over his shoulder to Jay and Nya as they were close together on the couch. "You guys went to that restaurant that gave out a full view of the city, right?" he asked to receive a nod from the samurai and lightning ninja. "Did you happen to see any...fire to cause that?"

"No we didn't." Jay replied. "The restuarant rotates very slowly to give us the view, so we didn't see anything to cause that though."

"Then it seems like we should investigate this cause." Zane added. "As well the murder. We may be facing a new threat." The ice ninja pulled himself off the floor and spun into his white armorized gi and pants. He checked his hips to see his shurikens attached in his holster and waited for the others to join.

Cole stretched his arms to stifle a yawn and pulled himself to his feet. "Good idea, Frosty." he said and spun into his black suit and made sure his scythe was attached to his back.

The green ninja yawned as he climbed out of Lucas' lap and pulled his cousin to his feet. "But what about Kai?" he yawned the question and spun into his suit. "And breakfast?"

Lucas followed after his cousin and sheathed his sai's into his silvery grey belt. "We can worry about breakfast later, Shrimp." he said while ruffling his blonde hair. "Right now, this is more important. As for Kai, if he ever shows up, he'll join us then and we'll question him about his whereabouts. I say we split up. Half of us go to the trainyard and the other half as the historic district."

"Sounds like a plan I would've thought of." Cole said.

Laurie barely listened while the black ninja gave out commands on who was going where to investigate. The wind ninja heard her name being mentioned to perk her head and slowly stood to take a deep breath. She was nervous about performing Spinjitzu as she was slowly mastering it to control it before trying to create a tornado to vacuum air out with her inside like before after she thought Lloyd was doomed to be a Serpentine after being bitten by the Fangprye general. But she took a deep breath and calmly spun in her yellowish-orange dusty tornado and stopped. She shyly smiled triumph as she was fully dressed in her orange gi with new silver rugged shoulder armor her uncle equipted for her suit like the others were except for Lloyd. Before she even slipped her mask that was like the others over her face, she hoped she doesn't investigate at the trainyard.

* * *

Surely enough, Laurie gotten the opposite what she had wanted. The trainyard. The wind ninja gazed around the crime scene with her brother and Zane and watched as the ice ninja was asking the chief questions while her brother was eyeing the semi-truck that collided with a train on the rail. She moved her brother aside as investigators were coming and going to record the scene. How did that even get there though?

"But sir," Zane's voice broke her train of thought to turn her head with her brother. "We'd like to help you on this investigation. We have faced many supernatural events before and believe that this and the destruction in the city are connected." The ice ninja walked along sides with the chief as they reached the truck and train and stopped at the gap in the middle. "Please let us have some time to see what we're looking for. And we'll let you be."

The chief snorted. "There's nothing supernatural here." he rebutted. "But I agree about the connection though. But here is a murder crime scene and there's no...ghost or anything."

"What about the truck then?" Lloyd asked while crossing his arms over his chest.

"Who knows, Pipsqueak." the chief shrugged. "Failed attempt to crush the fella then. The point is that there is no supernatural stuff than just the connection. End of story." and walked away to cross through to the garage.

Zane sighed to him a hard stare at the back of his head and shifted his gaze away to meet with something odd. On the metal hull of the locomotive were five slender marks melted into metal have him raise a brow in curiousness. He slipped his black glove off to use a comparison with the same right hand and laid it over. The Ninja of Ice noticed how his fingers overlapped the melted area than the original underneath as they were thinner and bony than his phalangies. Even each finger had two dents of each length of different...bones. "Skeletons." he muttered to himself and made sure Laurie and Lloyd heard his comfirmation. He slipped his glove back over his hand and followed after the chief with the green and orange ninja in tow.

Laurie followed behind her brother to avert her gaze as the bony fingers melted into the steel and quickly jogged up to meet with the boys in white and green. But before she could reach them, the girl paused as two paramedics wheeled a gurany with no doubt the body of the conductor underneath the white sheet over the gravel ground. She gazed at the body that was hidden beneath the sheet and a small bump caused a purplish arm to sprout with the dry sound of bones breaking. The girl quickly pressed her gloved hands over her concealed mouth to cover her scream as she gazed at the pale purple and blue arm while it wheeled away to feel her heart racing and quickly ran inside to hopefully clear the image from her head. But it still buzzed in her head as she looked away to watch the chief kneel over a burnt footprint.

"So what do we have here?" he wondered as he towered over the prints. He gazed at them closely, but sighed as he couldn't see treads from the soles of the murderer's shoes. _This is gonna throw us off. _he thought and smelled a faint and odd smell. He thought it over to rub a finger near the edge of a seared foot and brought it closer to his nose. _Odd._ he thought.

Laurie and the other two ninjas each raised a brow to what the chief was performing and slowly caught faint traces of the smell. The wind ninja looked at the prints as the faint substance smelled familiar to her and knelt next to a print. _Why does it smell familiar? _she wondered. The fiery red-haired girl stroke her index finger on a sole and rubbed it against her thumb as she brought it closer to her nose while lowering the lower half of her mask to free her nose and breathe in. _Why does it smell so familiar?_ she wondered more and more. She continued to rub her finger and thumb together to ponder while searching through her memories to concentrate the aroma as her eyes widen in conclusion. "Sulfur." she deducted.

The chief lifted his head to furrow his brows as he stood up to straighten his coat. "I beg your pardon?" he inquired. "Sulfur you say?"

The orange ninja nodded as she stood up while sliding her mask back over her nose. "You see in ancient times, sulfur was considered the fire and brimstone in Serpentine cults or religions." she began and slowly relasped about the deity named Belinda and her archaeology adventures with her mother. "When the Serpentine ever angered their gods, they feared fire and brimstone from volcanoes of sulfur poisoning. The same as well goes in our history books. We get the same with the Fire Temple and Torchfire Mountain."

Everyone turned their eyes on he solutions and looked at the prints. _Sulfur poisoning?_ Zane wondered. _Somehow doesn't connect with my theory now. Skeletons aren't known for using sulfur. But both the body and biker gang connect to the deaths. But what about the skeleton hand then? What are we up against?_

"Whoa." Lloyd exclaimed quietly while looking at the prints. "How did you manage to know that before Zane could answer, Sis? Usually you're quiet and don't know much as the rest of us."

Laurie gave her brother a small hard stare in the last remark. Sure it may be true since she's the newest member to the team, but everyone would know other things than what the others may know. "Let's just say that I've done a lot of excavation trips with our mother while we were separated. I pick up a thing or two when I'm dragged along with her." She looked away to think about her trips with her mother after she sent Lloyd to the boarding school for bad boys. "No matter how much I denied to go." she muttered under breath.

"Oh." the green ninja said while keeping his gaze away. He nervously adjusted the small black gloves adorned on his hands and didn't make eye contact with his older sibling. "Do you know where she is the last you saw her?" he wondered. "Our mom?"

The red-haired girl sighed while walking away with the ice ninja and green ninja behind to reach the Ultra Sonic Raider parked outside the trainyard. They had gotten their information now. The wind ninja felt an old flame burn inside her, but quickly extinguished it as it no longer bothered her. But cared about the fresh flame inside her. Kai. Before she climbed into the vehicle, she turned around to kneel and face her brother. "I really don't know, Lloyd." she admitted. "I haven't seen her since I ran away to find you. She could be anywhere for all I care." She watched him look up to nod as he understood now. A clear message saying: _I don't want to talk about it._ "But right now, I keep wondering where Kai is. I need to talk to him whenever he shows his face. Something that is now important. Just... where is he?"

* * *

Kai's eyes snapped open as he jolt up to clutch his chest and throat. His vision was cloudy as he felt his head pounding like drums. But through his obscewered vision, he could spot a small bedside table filled with tin cups to quickly snatch one to see it was filled with water and ravenously drank it to feel his throat cooling to the burning feel inside and tossed it aside to grab another with water trailing down his chin. After his third drink, the fire ninja had gotten a better hold of his senses of his surroundings and catiously observed the room with a stain-glass window of a gold dragon with different elements around it behind him as he laid on a single bed. He appeared to be in a one room shack, like his old apartment, but needed answers. He heard faint steps outside and grabbed another tin cup and headed outside to blink as he stepped into a cemetary.

He gazed around the surrounding gravestones, old or new, but still wondered how he gotten there in the first place. But he now remembered his date last night with Laurie and never showed. She was gonna be furious to kill him when he ever returned home. But if he can ever figure out where he was though. The red ninja kept shifting his chocolate brown eyes around and spotted a man hovering over a grave while checking his pocketwatch attached to his vest and leaned against a spade shovel. He wondered if he knew the answers he wanted as he walked over to him and noticed him perking his head up. "Feeling better?" he asked with a small smirk.

Kai looked at him catiously about his well being and slowly nodded. "Yeah I feel fine." he replied while sipping his water. "I feel like my skull is on fire so I don't know. But thanks for the water, but have you seen the motorcycle I had. And...where am I?" The man chuckled to have Kai raise his notched brow. "Was it something I said?"

"How ironic." the man said while leaning forward on the shovel. "We're big on irony here. As well when someone doesn't remember being in Ignacia Village." Kai's eyes grew wide and quickly gazed around the mention of his hometown. He could see the small town through the barrier of cherry blossom trees to realize he was home. He turned back to the caretaker while he pointed to a different direction. "It's over there. In the shed." he said while the fire ninja saw the small wooden shed.

The Ninja of Fire spotted the small shed to turn back and nod. "Thanks." he said and started to walk away.

"It does," the caretaker spoke.

The spiky haired teen stopped to turn and furrow his brows. "What?" he asked, confused.

"Wondering if your bike looks normal, it does. The answers to your questions did happen. It wasn't a dream. And it will happen again.

Kai felt his muscles tense while furrowing his brows still. "Who are you?" he questioned him.

The caretaker chuckled. "The question is, who are you?" he rebutted. Kai started to lose time and patients to his game and walked away. "You're the Rider. A Ghost Rider! Get used to it, Kid. It'll be a lot easier for ya. Cause if not, I got a nice cozy spot for ya over to the grave I found you at." He directed with a playful smile to point with his shovel to receive a glare.

Kai shook his head about what he said and could feel faint memory fragments of a dream as he pulled the wooden doors. The motorcycle was the same to him when he seen it last night. Red with flame accents on the gas tank and handlebars high to his bicep arms. But what he noticed around the bars was a coil of chain-links, but shrugged his shoulders as he'll wonder about it later as his main priority was to get back home. He took the last sip of his water and rest it on a work bench and grabbed the bars to kick the kickstand to push it down a small path.

"They seen you now." the caretaker said as he walked on the other side of the fire ninja. "They'll be waiting for ya." Kai kept giving him weird looks to what he was rambling about. What does he mean? "You're gonna need my help. That's how you wounded up here."

Kai stopped as he reached the asphalt path and perched himself on the seat. He gave him a final weird look and looked away. "Look I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are and what you're talking about." he stated. "Right now, I need to get back home because of...whatever happened last night to be here. Plus the last time I trusted an elder, it didn't plan out so well." and kick started the bike to ignite the engine and revved the engine.

"This ain't something you can run from, Kid." the caretaker exclaimed while Kai started heading off. He snorted as he heft his shovel over his shoulder as he was being ignored. "This day has been coming since you made that deal!" Kai applied the brakes while planting his feet to skid to a halt and catiously looked over his shoulder to make eye contact with him and killed the engine.

The caretaker had to smirk. "Congradulations." he said with a small chuckled. "Your chances went to none to slim."

* * *

**Oohh... Seems like someone knows all about Kai on his deed with Samukai. Wonder how that's gonna go for him now. As welll when he gets back to the Bounty with Laurie out there to kill him for last night. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the update, leave a review if you wish to and I'll see you all next week. :)**


	9. History Leads to Broken Hearts

**Hey everyone happy Friday and time for an update. Have nothing much to say but I started my college classes on tuesday and already get swamped with hoemwork. Oh well. Enjoy the update. **

* * *

**Chapter 8: History Leads to Broken Hearts**

The caretaker carefully rolled up Kai's shirt and used the sunlight from the windows to examine his wound more clearer. A laceration about three inches long with blueish-black skin around the edges of sudden trauma of bruising. Kai could feel the soreness radiate in his shoulder and clenched his teeth to the small burn of alcohol rubbing being applied gingerly as he sat calmly on a wooden wicker chair with his back turned for him. He'll need to ask Lucas if he can heal that for him later, whenever he gets back however. But still, how does he know his soul deal? "The Rider is Samukai's bounty hunter in many legends." the caretaker began as he tossed the blood-stained gauze into a ceramic bowl. "Sent to hunt down anyone that escapes from the Underworld." He thread a piece of clear string through a crochet needle. "Sterilize that for me will ya." he said and held it to Kai.

"Sterilize." Kai repeated as he looked at it and held his hand up to see if he can sterilize the needle and string like if he had his elemental powers back.

The caretaker looked over his shoulder to roll his silver blue eyes. "The boiling water." he directed him correctly.

The fire ninja stopped to shake his head to turn his gaze to a small one burner stove on his right with a small pot of water boiling. "Right okay." he sighed and took the thread to dip it and handed it back. "Sorry I'm a bit confused about all of this."

The caretaker gave out a small chuckle as he carefully pierced the needle through his flesh to hear him wince and carefully fed it into the other side to begin slowly sealing the wound. "During the day, you'll be normal." he continued and began making a second pass. "But at night, that's when the Rider takes over."

Kai continued to wince a little and slowly adjusted to the tolerance as he could feel his shoulder being sewn shut. But he then felt faint memories run through his head and it dawned on him. His hands burning up in the beginning and when he couldn't move from the bike as it drove itself. Then his body burning until he saw darkness and became a new person. "I remember now." he said and returned to the past to see a mugger scream in front of him and fire. "There was this punk," he continued. "And I could see all the wrong he has done." He then remember the charcoal gaze in the end. "And...I turned it all against him."

"The Penance Stare." the caretaker answered and finished sewing him. The spiky-haired teen looked at him confused to raise his notched brow. The what? "It sears the souls of the wicked. It's the Ghost Rider's greatest weapon. All Riders have it."

Kai rested his elbow on the small table with his chin resting on his palm to ponder. He looked over his shoulder to gaze at the stained-glass window of the golden dragon with the six elements at the sides. "Have there been others with my...Ghost Rider problems?" he asked quietly.

"There been a few." the caretaker replied and carefully examined Kai's shoulder. "The last one was a hundred and fifty years ago in a little town known as San Anumlia." He then picked up a small washrag to catch any blood that may well out. "Nice town. Nice people. Till a stranger came along making promises. One deal at a time."

The fire ninja thought it over and realized the stranger. "Samukai." he breathed a little.

The caretaker nodded. "Consumed by greed, they turned on one another. Until then, the village of San Anumlia drowned in its own blood. Their souls trapped forever in that foresaken place." He removed the rag to grab some fresh gauze and carefully began wrapping around his shoulder.

The spiky-haired teen looked down at his feet to let the history sink in. _Samukai has been doing this since the dawn of time then._ he wondered. He could imagine all the fights and killings happening with Samukai gazing down in victory. But then remembered about last night with four demons and turning one, that looked like Cole, to stone and the name the skeleton king assigned him to. "What does this have to do with Blackheart?" he wondered.

The caretaker stopped dressing the wound to look at him skeptical. "Blackheart?" he inquired. "He sent you after Blackheart?"

"And others." the red ninja added.

"The Hidden Elements." he exclaimed and continued to wrap the laceration. Kai looked at him weirdly now. He was not making sense like his sensei would on lessons. "Wicked beings that tried to gain power from the First Spinjitzu Master. They were the opposites from him after a dark shadow created them and his army created from stone. But the Spinjitzu Master won and broke Ninjago in half and casted the elements aside for the light was powerful. But Samukai saw use for the fire element and created the Ghost Rider. He hunted down the ice and lightning element but the three remain hidden until the end of days. Oddly enough, they're suppose to represent the Ninja of Spinjitzu." He rolled down his sleeve and patted his back. "Better hang around here, Kid. They cannot walk onto hallow ground."

Kai slowly pulled himself to his feet and winced a little, but didn't care for the pain. "Thanks." he said and grabbed his leather jacket to drape it on. "And thanks for the info. I feel way better now that I'm the Underworld king's bounty hunter and have to stop these things." He rolled his shoulders to wince a little more and started heading for the door.

The caretaker turned the small burner off and removed the pot of water. "Where ya going then?" he asked while following him out.

The red ninja walked over to the motorbike and swung his legs over the seat and kicked the small and sturdy kickstand. "There's someone I need to see." he replied hastily.

"That's a bad idea."

"Wouldn't be my first." the Ninja of Fire rebutted and started the bike to hear it revv and rumble; waiting to leave.

The caretaker walked up to him and leaned against a small iron wrought fence around a grave. "Why'd you do it?" he wondered while scratching his scruffed chin. "Why'd make the deal?"

Kai stopped and averted his chocolate eyes away. He had a reason why, but to him it was personal. To save his father, but both parents were gone in the end. Along with guilt he brought upon. He sighed. "It was to save someone I love and care for." he replied.

"And what did you get in return?" he asked.

The fire ninja sighed and lifted his gaze. "A brokenheart." he said and twisted the throttle to revv the engine and left.

* * *

Kai slowly stalled the motorcycle as he slowly passed through the historical district of Ninjago City and stopped to what he saw...and done. "Oh my god." he murmured under his breath. He could see forensic scientists swarming over the burnt trees, twisted and disoriented meters, toppled cars, and the long burnt trail of cracked asphalt. "Did I do this?" he wondered still. "This has to been a dream." The fire ninja gazed around to shut the bike off and froze as he saw a familiar Spinjitzu vehicle in the distance from the scene and three teens around his age adorned in blue, grey, and black; his family. But with them was a girl, a bit younger than their age, maybe sixteen, with long raven black hair and dressed in a yellow sweatshirt and skirt. _Is that the girl I saved from the punk?_ he wondered. _It has to be. Oh man, I'm hooped now if they see me._ He hopped off the bike and slowly walked towards them, but stopped to be at hearing distance as he could hear them.

"What are you doing here, Dawn?" Cole asked. The blue and grey ninja turned their heads towards him to raise their scarred brows. He knows her? The earth ninja crossed his arms over his chest to ponder while giving the girl a hard stare with his amber eyes. "Does my aunt know you're out here?" he pried.

The girl, Dawn, looked down at her feet as her gaze met his. She sighed. "I'm sorry I didn't call, Cole." she replied. "But I wanted to surprise you and Uncle Lou for a visit since I didn't get to see you last month." She picked up her bag and held it close. "But as I was entering the city...I was...almost mugged."

"Wait what!?" Cole burst out. He pulled his cousin closer to him to examine her. "Are you alright at least!?"

The girl nodded and jerked herself free from him. "I'm fine, really." she replied. "How? Because someone saved me."

The three ninja looked at each other to shrug their shoulders and thought over last night. No one was out last night except for Jay, Nya, and Laurie. Lucas and Lloyd were out seeing a movie and had to pick Laurie up from the restaurant and Cole and Zane remained on the Bounty with Sensei Wu. But Kai was missing in action. Could he be the one who saved her? "Uh...do you remember what he looked like?" Jay asked skeptical.

Dawn nodded and can retale the events burning in her mind. Everything from her assailant to the hero. "He's not that hard to forget." she said. "He's about your height, broad shoulders. A weird demonic motorcycle. And was on fire."

"Fire?" Lucas wondered with the others.

"Yeah. But he was a skeleton though." she added. "A flaming skeleton. Like his skull was on fire. He even did something to that after he saved me. He told him to look in his eyes and there was screaming...and...and..." she paused and slowly collasped but the water ninja caught her with Cole hovering next to her. "And his eyes were charcoal after he left." she finished after gaining her breath. Kai, listening to this from a small distance, looked at his hands to feel his face to imagine everything described about his other form and perked his ears to the conversation. "Oh Cole, I'm still scared." she muttered a little. "Can I stay with you for awhile. I promise I'll go back to my mother and sister."

Cole looked into his cousin's pleading green grey eyes to sigh with a small smile underneath his mask. "Sure." he said. "Stay as long as you like." He turned his gaze away to meet with Kai's chocolate brown eyes and never broke contact with him. Even Jay and Lucas spotted him. "Lucas, take my cousin to the Tank and meet up with us. We gotta talk to someone." The grey ninja nodded and took Dawn's bag and lead her away while having a small conversation with her while the earth and lightning ninja met up with the fire ninja. "There you are." he exclaimed with a sigh of relief in his tone. "We've been worried for you and kept wondering what happened to you. What happened?"

"Also," Jay chirped in as he placed his hands on his hips. "Why didn't you show up for dinner?" his voice was slightly annoyed with a small glare from his hazel eyes. "Nya and Laurie are very mad at you about last night. How are you gonna explain this?"

Good question. How was he gonna explain this? If he explains to them that he was hunting demons as a skeleton, they'll think he was crazy and send him away. _They wouldn't do that would they? _he wondered. _Hope not. We're family._ The fire ninja brought himself back to see he was fiddling with his hands and shook his head to meet with the eyes of his brothers. "I'm sorry..." he said while thinking of an alabi. "I don't remember what happened. I was on my way to meet up with you and the girls and I woke up in a graveyard. I have no clue what happened. I somehow blackout and see this. What happened and where's Laurie? I have to talk to her."

"She's at the trainyard with Zane and Lloyd." Lucas replied as he was catching up with the others. "Nya is at the Bounty in case you shown your face there because she looks like she wants to strangle you. Anyway, both girls are extremely mad at you."

_Trainyard?_ Kai thought._ Blackheart._ The red ninja gazed around his elemental brothers to see their concerned look through the slit of masks and felt his heart ease. Even their voices weren't harsh or angered, but soft and worried. "But...you're not mad at me?" he asked sounding a but surprised.

The fire ninja looked at the black ninja's eyes and watch the amber orbs become soft and he simply removed his mask to show Kai the small smile. Even Jay and Lucas removed their masks to show him their small smiles. He was now confused. "Of course, we're not mad." the earth ninja said. "You're our brother and we were worried for you. So none of us aren't mad."

Jay looked over Kai's shoulder and his smile slowly vanished and felt his back turn stiff. "Yeeahh but I don't think she's worried though." he said and points what was behind him.

Kai now felt his back turn stiff and heart racing and slowly turned around to gulp. He could see through the crowd to three people in white, green, and orange. But the one in orange was walking in a quicker pace than the other two with her icy blue eyes burning hot daggers. The fire ninja felt his palms become clammy and slowly stepped up to the wind ninja until he was in front of her. "Laurie, I-" He was stopped as the wooden weapon of a bo staff was at his throat.

Laurie glared towards the fire ninja and moved her weapon away from his throat. "You have some nerve to show yourself back here, Kai." she growled. Kai had his mouth opened to explain, but she used the end of her staff to close before he spoke a squeak from himself. "I waited."

"Laurie, I-" Kai began to object.

"I waited and waited." Laurie continued. "And you never showed." The Ninja of Wind could see the look in his eyes as if he was about to say, _I know. But I could explain, _but she didn't care and want to hear it from him. "What kind of person asks someone out and never show up? Maybe it's only you." She drew in a deep breath to watch his eyes grow wide and lips quivering with uncertainty. "My mother was right." she muttered under breath. "Trust the ones that love you and never stab you in the back."

Kai was now stunned. He couldn't think straight now to her words piercing through him. He taken a step back. "Laurie, can I please explain abo-" he paused.

"Save it, Kai." Laurie objected. "I'm mad that I don't want to hear it from you. You know what? We are taking a break until who knows how long. Or maybe it's over. I'll let fate decide." and turned on her heels to leave.

Kai stood there stupidfied and was motionless with his jaw dropping. Even everyone that heard the news was stunned by the outburst. The fire ninja felt his world shattering into pieces and hung his head as he felt his relationship was over. He knew it was his fault though. He was eager to build their relationship stronger, but failed. He shook away those that came close to him and walked back to the motorcycle to ignite it an head for the Bounty; heartbroken.

* * *

Back on the streets of the crime scene, a forensic scientist named Jamie Grey was sweeping along the crack for any possible clues than just burnt trees or bent parking meters. Her dark maroon hair was pulled back into a ponytail to hand off of her shoulder as she scanned around the area with her seafoam green eyes with careful observing. She spotted something unusal under the rubble and pushed it away to pick it up with her latex gloves to prevent her prints from the crime scene. Her brows furrowed as it was a burnt gold piece of attire with a smouldering face of a dragon or something she couldn't make up as it also had flame patterns on the top. _I feel like I see this somewhere. But where?_ she wondered. "Hey Alex," she called out to her partner. "I got something for you to check out."

* * *

**Wow. Kai is now doomed of his relationship since he failed to show. All because of his debt as the Ghost Rider. Darn it, Samukai. You're ruining people's lives. But more troubling now that the police have found a clue about the recent events last night. This should be good. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the update, have a good weekend and see you all next week. :)**


	10. The Power Within

**Hey everyone, time for an update. Nothing much to say but enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 9: The Power Within**

Night was slowly rolling into the sky, but dusk had settled first. The sun was slowly settling away in the horizon to leave the evening sky in streaks of warm colors. The stars started filling the sky as well in faint white dots as the night came. A calming autumn evening. In Ninjago City, the city itself was quiet. Cars weren't blaring their horns in traffic. The street lamps illuminated the roads and sidewalks as the day was coming to an end. Citizens filled the streets to enjoy the night by taking evening strolls. But many though were concern and aware of the murderer from last night. Where was he though?

Kai gazed out of the small window in the bathroom he shared with the others to sigh to the descending beauty. After the small heartbreak with Laurie and the healing of his shoulder from Lucas, the spiky-haired teen locked himself in the shared bunkroom for time alone to coop to. The others, other than Lloyd, understood his situation and left him be. But the fire ninja couldn't stop thinking of the wind ninja since he still loves her and always stopped himself from leaving the room to talk to her, even though she shunned him away. "What am I doing?" he realized to himself. "I'm sounding like Jay." He walked away from the window to slide the paper, shoji door shut for privacy.

* * *

Minutes after the shower he had taken, Kai quickly dried himself and threw his towel around his waist to walk out to reach his dresser to a new set of clothes to throw on and walked back into the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror to ring out his messy hair and grab the small bottle of hair gel to carefully begin sculping his hair back to its natural spiky look. After he sculpted the last spike, he continued to stare at himself and slowly imagined himself as a flaming skeleton and gave himself a small check up. He had checked around his eyes, throat, and for a small test, he turned his back to quickly jump back to give himself a scare like it was for hiccups, but nothing happened. "I must be going crazy." he said to himself and stepped back out to stare around the bare bunkroom. He then sighed with uncertainity as the caretaker's advice buzzed in his head. "But it wouldn't hurt to know some answers."

* * *

Books and scrolls littered the floorboards of the living room pile after pile. Pages yellowed with age from the mixture of air and time. Ink sketches and scriptures filled the pages on the once ivory colored paper. And the old leather bound spines crinkled with age as they were stacked on the floor with the red ninja gazing through them hurriedly; seeking for the answers that lie within.

Kai's chocolate brown eyes scanned vigorously as he searched around the old books he obtained from Sensei Wu's room. When asked why he broke into his collection, he simply ignored him and left. Kai felt that he may have been rude to his teacher for breaking in like that, but he needed answers to know more of Samukai, the Underworld, or even the Ghost Rider. He would ask Lucas since he spent his years in the Underworld by Garmadon, but figured it would raise some suspicion to the team about last night's events.

The Ninja of Fire carefully gazed around a black leather bound book that rested on the coffee table in front of him. He sighed while rubbing his slowly heavy eyes and turned the page carefully to shudder at the image. A small hand-held mirror with matrix swirls adorned to the sides with ancient symbols inside the reflective gold glass; The Twilight Mirror. The red ninja turned the page to not rethink of the black magic mirror that unleashed destruction and monstroisty on the summer solstice by Garmadon, but ended by Lucas for being the true wielder to the mirror, but stopped to the next picture.

He gazed at the small ink sketch of a skeleton standing over a floor full of skulls with him raising his head high with flames emitting from his body. _This has to be it._ he thought and slowly read the page long scripture and legend. As he browsed, he began to notice familiar words. "Penance Stare," he read along while shifting his eyes and jotted it down on a small notepad he had. "End of days." he said and raised his notched brow as something caught his attention. "Whoever has the possessing spirit within," he read along quietly to himself. "He shall have the summoning power of the element fire within to sear away the wicked."

Kai stopped reading the last part to look down at his hands. Could it be? Does he have his elemental powers back? "That can't be right." he wondered. It was confusing to him now. He was the fire ninja after the First Spinjitzu Master endowed him with the fire element. But he lost the ability after the Sword of Fire was taken away from him by Garmadon to become part of the Mega Weapon. But maybe with the power of Ghost Rider from Samukai, it could be something else. "Only one way to find out." he said to himself and pulled himself up.

The fire ninja drew in a deep breath with his right hand held high. He closed his eyes to think about the warmth of fire dancing on his palm but he felt nothing. _How do you turn this thing on?_ he wondered but stopped as he sounded stupid. But it then came to him. Kai held his right hand high again and drew in another deep breath. "With the possessing power of the Ghost Rider," he announced like it was an oath. "I summon the element of fire in my hand to sear the souls of the wicked."

He waited and waited but slowly felt his palm become warm. His palm was slowly pinkish red until it became darker and a small flicker of fire erupted in his hand. But soon the flame engulfed his hand in a blazing fire, but didn't panic for the fire wasn't scalding his hand. In fact, he was used to the fire for it was his element. But it worked though. He had the power of fire back. No longer felt limited.

Kai slowly smiled and chuckled as he manuevered his hand with the flames dancing along to his movement. "I guess I can get use to this." he said and stopped to stare at a set of candles and incense sticks on a small pedestal in the corner for Zane's meditations. He wondered. With the fire still in his control and formed a fireball and flicked his wrist to throw the heat at the candles and sticks. The fire dispersed quickly in the air, but the small embers caught the wicks to illuminate the candles and small heat stubs to create smoke on the incense. The Ninja of Fire smiled to having his powers back and looked at his hands. "Oh yeah," he mused. "I can get use to this."

There was a small but quiet knock behind the burnet and he felt his body jump a little to the surprise and quickly turned to see Laurie at the doorway to the hallway. He felt his heart stop a little to see her again after this morning and hoped that she didn't see him conjure his powers. But what was strange to him that she had a small swornful smile on her face. "Hi." she said quietly and walked in.

Kai still felt his heart stopped and the color leaving his face as she didn't look angry at him. He didn't know what to do. "Uh...H-Hi." he stuttered to speak.

The wind ninja stood in front of the spike-haired burnet to give him a soft smile while looking down but her icy blue eyes were locked on him. "I just want to apologize about eariler, Kai." she said quietly. "I didn't mean to snap at you like because I was just furious on you and didn't mean for those to come and lash on you. There's a reason though." She began to smell something faint and burning in the living room. "Is something burning in here?" she inquired.

Kai turned stiff a little that she'll find about his powers and needed a cover story. But he hated lying to her but didn't want anyone to know about his secret still. "Uh... Yeah, uh, Lloyd was in here and wanted a quick lesson to know more on his fire powers." he lied and walked up to a window to open it and wave his hands to let fresh air in. "But we had a small mishap when trying to light some candles but we're good. No harm done." He looked around nervously, but remained calm to keep his secret.

The redhead girl looked into his chocolate eyes to see the uncertainity in them, but simply shrugged her shoulders and seated herself on the couch while resting her arms on her legs. "Anyway, about my behavior to you was harsh and I'm sorry." she continued without making eye contact with him. "It's just that... I never had this happen before." Kai's eyes widen a little to the news and slowly took a seat next to her. The wind ninja drew in a deep breath to clear her head. "My mother had me and Lloyd home-schooled when we were young and I never got to see guys at normal schools and had the true dating experience. But until you came. You gave me the chance to do so, Kai." She took his hand and wrapped her fingers with his. "And I thank you for that. But I'm still mad at you for last night and I think this break will help us."

Kai was still surprised to hear about her past of everything, but was glad to know he could give her the experience like Jay would for his sister. The fire ninja simply nodded with a small half smile, but it vanished as he looked over her shoulders to see a duffle bag packed against the doorframe and felt his heart stop again. "You're leaving?" he asked concerned.

The girl simply lifted her head to shake her head. "Not forever." she replied. "Just for awhile." Kai furrowed his brows to look at her weirdly. "Sensei heard about our fight today and agreed that a break will help us. He told me that it worked for my mother and father while the venom was consuming him. But since he saw how angry and upset I was, he suggested that I stay at a hotel for a day or two to calm down and relax. So... I had to agree." She looked away to stare at her hands. "Lucas is going to drop me off soon while taking Lloyd to the comic book store and I want this apology the last thing about us than my outburst." She smiled at him softly and slowly headed for the door.

Kai was speechless and had trouble to find his voice as he watched the orange ninja walk away. _What are you doing?_ he asked himself. _Talk to her. Tell her the truth. Do it before it's too late. _The fire ninja quickly jumped to his feet and paced over the wind ninja. "Laurie, wait." he called to her. The redhead stopped at the doorway and turned to face Kai in front of her. "Before you go, can I at least explain why I never showed up?"

Laurie thought it over and nodded. She had completely forgotten that he was trying to reason with himself, but kept interrupting him. That was rude from her. "Sure." she said. "You can tell me what it was that you had to talk about."

"You wouldn't believe me and you may think I'm crazy." he continued and stared into her eyes to receive a look in her eyes like it was saying, _Try me._ He drew in a deep breath. "About a year or two ago, my father was dying from lung cancer and I knew about it but never mentioned it to Nya before. But that night, something happened." He averted his brown eyes away. "I...I sold my soul to Samukai to save his life. And he came to me last night to have me pay off my debt as his bounty hunter. I was even something else that night. I wasn't human. That's why I never showed up."

Laurie stood still quiet while trying to piece the puzzle together. She didn't look up to make eye contact with him while crossing her arms over her windbreaker. Obvisously he was making up excuses again to save himself for last night. "So let me get this straight." she said. "You sold your soul to the deceased skeleton king the others told me about and transform into this-"

"Monster that does unspeakable things to those that are wicked." Kai interjected. "I know I sound crazy and maybe am, but it's true. Even from when I saved Cole's cousin and she described who it was. I swear to you, I'm not making this up. You have to believe me, Laurie. I'm doing this to protect you and the others from Blackheart and the Hidden Elements."

The girl still gave him an odd look while still putting the puzzle together but it came blank in her mind. She was now convinced he was making more fibs to excuse himself. Annoyed, the orange ninja gave him a dull look. "For starters, I think you're crazy then." she said.

"Maybe I am." Kai added.

"But," she continued. "I can't believe you would make such an askew lie to save yourself on this." Kai felt hollow and defeated that she wouldn't believe him. The wind ninja grabbed her bag and turned on her heels to have her back facing him. "Maybe this break will bring you back to reality and not in the Land of Make-Believe. Best for the both of us if you're going to make useless excuses. Talk to me for when you're ready to tell the truth." and walked away to the deck.

"Laurie, wait." he cried out to her while running after her out and throwing his leather jacket on. "I am telling the truth." The fire ninja ran up the stairs to the deck with wondering eyes watching the event unfold. He didn't care if Jay, Cole, Zane, and Sensei, and Cole's cousin, Dawn, were watching the wind ninja climb down the fire escape. He ran across the roof of Dareth's dojo and jumped off to spun into his fiery Spinjitzu to safely land and stopped. He watched her climbed into the Rain and could see the solemn glint in her eyes as their seats were being lowered by Lucas' control with the hatch closing over them. The engine roared to life and slowly took off from the alley it was in and onto the road.

She was now gone.

Kai sighed with sorrow as he tried everything to convince her but it was now too late. He looked at the roof to see his brothers were watching over him and left to leave him alone. The fire ninja stared out in the streets where she left and sighed again. "This must be what it feels like." he wondered. "I'm sorry, Laurie."

There was a loud whine of police sirens filling the air and Kai's ears perked to lift his head and watched police cars filled the alley and surrounded him. He was surprised amd confused as they were shouting orders at him with their weapons aimed on him. He froze to whether or not raise his hands up because something wasn't right. Where were the others even? The fire ninja turned his head to the roof to hear the others calling out his name but turned to see the chief with a girl in her teen years with long black hair and green and brown eyes walking towards him. "You're the fire ninja, right?" he asked. "From the warehouse the other day?"

Kai stood rigid and petrified as the police had him surrounded like a trap animal. "Y-Yeah." he replied concerned.

"Good." the chief said. "Let me introduce myself. I'm Chief Joseph Johnson and this is my daughter, Captain Melody Johnson. You're under arrest."

"Wait what!?" the red ninja exclaimed while the girl named Melody went behind him to cuff his wrist together and heard the clickings as she tightened them. "What for!?"

"For murder." the captain replied and escorted Kai to a vehicle. "You have the right to remain silent. If you say or anything against you will be held in court of law." She opened the back door and roughly pushed his head down first and shoved him in and slammed the door shut.

"What!?" Kai shouted and sturggled to sit up against the leather seats as he kept sliding. Using his elbow, he prompt himself to sit up finally and watched his family rush over to him, but were held back. "What is going on!?" he wondered frantically. "I'm not a murderer. I've been set up." Kai looked around scared and winced a bit as the handcuffs dug into his wrists as felt the vehicle jerked forward to start accelerating and watched his family disappear from his view as he was taken away.

What was going to happen to him?

* * *

**I love it when I do suspense at the end of each chapter. It builds lot of character and suspense to leave readers wondering what could happen next. Even now that Kai got arrested for murder. Oh this should be good now. Anyway, hoped you enjoyed the update, have a great weekend and see you all next time. :)**


	11. Jailbird

**Hey everyone, happy Friday and time for an update. So last week happening to Kai was him being arrested for murder, what will the outcome be for him in this chapter? Find out.**

* * *

**Chapter 10: Jailbird**

"This has to be a huge misunderstanding!" Cole argued to the front desk officer. "Kai is not a murderer. But a ninja and hero like us."

After the sudden arrest of the fire ninja, the three remaining ninjas, excluding Lucas and Lloyd since they were coming from the news, raced down to the station to help clear Kai's name. But they weren't listening. The earth ninja shifted his gaze from the long desk to the long hall of dark white wall and tiled floors to a set of doors and watched Kai being dragged away through them. This made the black, white, and blue ninja become stiff in worry. Cole turned back to the desk. "You must believe us!" he begged. "He wouldn't do this."

The officer snorted. "Right." he argued sarcastically while crossing his arms over his chest and leaned against his chair. "And if I remembered in history class was that ninjas before you used to be assassins and killers too. Your friend was both."

Cole started to furrow his bushy brows. He was about to jump across the desk to knock some sense into him, but Zane was the one to pull him back. Being a nindroid with sixth sense, he could sense the small rumble of anger in his brother. To that, he stitched his brows lightly and shook his head. "Be wise, brother." he murmured quietly over his shoulder. "He's tempting you." The ice ninja then turned his gaze after receiving a nod from Cole and took his place. "What's going to happen to our friend?" he asked demandingly.

"Haven't you seen this stuff before on TV, Zane?" Jay chirped in. The white ninja's head looked over his shoulders to shake his head. The blue ninja rolled his hazel eyes as he kept forgetting that the bleach blonde haired teen hardly watches television after a day's work except if it was a news update or was a boring day. "Cole, you know what I'm talking about, right?" he asked and received a nod from him. "Basically they're gonna interrogate Kai and see if he's lying or not. But if he messes up big time or doesn't comply, he's going to jail until he's in court. And from what I read in books or seen on TV, prison is no vacation."

"Right you are, Motormouth." the officer said, relieved that he finally stopped talking so loudly. On more step to headache if he kept going. He shrugged it off as he was given glares from the three and sighed. "If it was any possible way, maybe afterwards I'll see if you can talk to him. In the mean time, have a seat." He motioned his hand to the rows of empty seats, except for Nya as her head was down and crying for her brother, and picked up a comic book to read.

The three ninjas still glared at the officer and walked away to the long rows of seat to sit down on the rough, low cushioned seat. This was going to be a long and heptic night now. They were now annoyed and angry about this situation. Even the buzzing from the fluorscent bulbs were making it worse. Jay had pulled Nya closer to him to comfort her as he could see she was scared for her brother. They all were. The samurai knew her brother would never do such a thing. This was madness to her. It felt wrong and wanted her brother back. He's all she had left to be with since they witnessed the death of their parents. But what was she going to do now? She continued to cry softly and buried herself into Jay's blue jacket while he stroked her hair.

"Good thing Laurie doesn't know about this after Lucas and Lloyd dropped her off." Cole whispered to Jay and Zane. "That would've been much worse than this." The lightning and ice ninja nodded in agreement and turned their heads to the sound of rushing feet as Lucas and Lloyd rushed in.

"What happened?" the grey and green ninja asked.

Cole sighed while digging his hands into the conjoined pocket of his hoodie to collect his thoughts. _How do I explain this?_ he wondered and looked up to meet with the wondering eyes to know the story. He sighed and dug his hands out to rest them behind his head. "Let's starts at the beginning where you three left..."

* * *

Kai shifted his eyes nervously as he sat on the metal chair in the quiet and cold interrogation room. He felt nervous interally however, but outside he was calm and content as he was given hot glares from the chief and new detective across the metal table. His eyes shifted away to the reflective glass in front of him but knew it was a one-way mirror meaning that others could see him, but he can't see them. Just like what he and others have seen when watching TV crime dramas. The burnet rubbed his raw wrists from the cuffs that the captain locked onto him tightly and met the two law enforcers in the eye. "I'm telling you the truth. I'm not a murderer." Kai chasisted. "There is no way I could've done this. I was with my friends this whole time."

"Really?" the detective challenged him. "You sure you don't remember Fritz?" He held up a file and tossed it to him and Kai opened it to see the purple skin groundskeeper to make him cringe a bit. "He was in his late fifites. Almost to retirement and never harmed a fly. In fact, not even this gang!" He furrowed his brows at Kai while he remained neutral. _He's playing me._ he thought. He reached into his suit jacket to pull out a Ziploc bag with marked evidence sprawled across it and tossed it to Kai. "Explain this then. There's only one person with this insignia and that's you."

Kai stared into the bag to feel his heart stop at the evidence. From the burnt and deformed shape, he could see it was his emblem as the Ninja of Fire. Each elemental and even the green ninja have an insignia of their element on a dragon's face. And from this, he has no clue how it became evidence. "This has to be a mistake." he said. "Someone must be framing me. I did not do this."

The chief sighed while rubbing his tired eyes and leaned against his chair. He had a long today and this was even making it longer. "Okay." he spoke up. "Let's take a breather." He flopped his coat to feel some cool air fan. "Man it's getting warm here, don't ya think?"

Kai looked at him oddly and raised his notched brow. "Warm?" he inquired.

The detective saw what Chief Johnson was doing and nodded along and took a seat next to him and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and pulled one out. "You smoke?" he asked and received a shook from the fire ninja. He then placed the stick into his mouth and pulled out a lighter. "Mind if I?" With a click of his thumb on the striker, a small flame erupted, but it quickly tried to reach for Kai to burn his thumb and dropped it to wince.

Kai looked at him weirdly as he saw what had happen as well. "Okay, that was weird." he said. The two law enforcers sighed as this was going nowhere. "Look I know what you're trying to do here. I watched a lot of TV with my family and see all kinds of crime dramas. Even that new one called The Following. But you're both trying to be the good cop and he's the bad cop and both of you are playing your parts really well. But let me say this to help you change your mind." He leaned forward to become closer to them. "I am not a murderer."

* * *

"Please stop!" Kai begged as he was dragged by his arms down the long hall of jail cells. "The real killer is out there. I'm innocent!" The fire ninja struggled but felt his feet dragged as he felt weak somehow. He nervously gazed at the individual cells of immates to gasp. His breathing became trembled and quickened and felt his palms become sweaty as he could sense their evil souls. He could sense each of their crimes were different such as robbery, murder, and so on to make him feel sweaty and clammy with the unknown heat swelling inside.

The Ninja of Fire looked up to feel his heart stop at the sight of a large rectangular cell that reminded him of a cage housed with all kinds of thugs as a holding cell. That's where they were dragging him to. "Please no!" he begged. "Not here. There's evil souls in there!" He was ignored as the officers unlocked the door and tossed him in and slammed the door shut. Kai felt his body flutter like crazy and pressed himself against the bars. "I don't belong in here." he breathed while pressing his burning forehead onto the cooled bars.

"Sorry but the Ritz was booked." the cop, James Johnson, laughed and left with his partner, who was also his twin.

"Hey, you look familiar." a thug exclaimed towards Kai.

Kai took a deep breath to gulp down some stale air to cool the burning heat in his chest. He didn't look back to meet them all. About ten or more in the cell including him. He took another deep breath and wiped the sweat off his brows. "Yeah I get that a lot." he said while shutting his eyes tightly to the headache.

"Nah." the thug argued darkly. "I recognized that hairdo from TV and the papers." He looked around to see the others looking up to the commotion. "You're that ninja, the red one, that has been fighting those snakes. You're also the guy who beaten the crap out of me after I tried to mug you and stabbed you."

Kai's light brown eyes suddenly opened wide to the last statement and slowly looked over his shoulder to feel the blood drain from his face. He recognized the bald muscular thug with a stubble beard growing. He had a black bandana crowning his head and adorned a black leather jacket that had metal studs on his shoulders. Even his gloves had metal studs on his knuckles that could cause harmful damage if ever struck by them. The fire ninja gazed around to meet his gaze with the other thugs that looked like the one who stabbed him before except that they only wore baggy clothes or jackets like his and the thugs to have his heart racing for the feeling of the Ghost Rider was creeping on him. He looked down to see he was like but wishes to be away from them. "Ah crap." he muttered quietly as he leaned against the bars.

The thug smirked as he crept to Kai slowly. "It is you." he confirmed about him. "What's a _ninja_ like you doing in a place like this?" Before Kai could open his mouth to reply, the thug towered over him, trapping him. "Doesn't matter. I'm gonna enjoy beating you for some revenge." He clenched his studded fist and swung it into Kai's abdomen.

The fire ninja squeezed his eyes tightly while gasping for air and grip the bars tightly. His abdomen muscles screamed in pain, but he was glad to have taut and strong muscles from training, but still that hurts. Kai refused to let out a cry escape from his lips, but slowly felt the gnawing fire and spirit climbing. Instead of screaming, he instead began to give out a throaty chuckle. "That's it, puny mortal." he murmured through his cleanched teeth quietly so he couldn't hear. "Release me." He slowly felt the fire increase as he was being surrounded by other thugs.

"Looks like someone is tripping out." another thug exclaimed

The thug that punched Kai looked down to see he was sweating like he had a high fever and had a deranged look on his face. But like he would care. "Outside you may be a hero," he said and clenched his fist while gripping his shoulder tightly. "But here, you're nothing but a monkey trapped in a cage." and swung his fist again to his abdomen, harder than before. "Nice jacket."

Kai refused to clench his eyes and took the blow like it was an invitation. He now was enjoying the pain to have a laugh escape from his throat. But it wasn't like a normal laugh. It was a low, demonic, and echoing as he could feel the spirit of the Ghost Rider clawing its way out as they shoved him to the floor and surrounded him. "Do it!" he growled through his teeth.

The youngest immate, in probably his late teen years, stood in the back petrified to move. A reason why he was in the holding cell was for disturbing the peace with fireworks. The teen watched in fear as they ganged up on the fire ninja and started infliciting pain to him. On a hero that wasn't fighting back without his fellow teammates. That he saw was unfair. He drew in a deep breath to brush his unkempt black hair from his green eyes to storm over to them. "Leave him alone!" he screamed at them to defend for Kai.

The thug with the studded gloves glanced at the teen to glare at him. He saw that he was trying to become the hero now than Kai. He towered over him to grab a hold of his sweatshirt. "Shut up, you maggot." he grumbled and dropped him to swing the back of his hand across his face to watch him stumble back to the floor. The teen felt pain radiate and scream on the side of his face and could feel a lump swell on his jawline with bits of tears forming and watched the thugs swarm onto him.

Kai felt pain erupt through his body as he was swarmed to receive either punches of kicks from the thugs ganging onto him, but he never showed signs of pain. But his chesire grin grew wider and wider and felt the fire burning hotter inside him. It was unbearable and unknown like last night. The fire ninja felt the gnawing inside him grow larger to clench his eyes tightly to quickly snap open to reveal orbs of fire.

The Rider has cometh.

The thugs continued to inflict pain to the spiky haired teen but soon were surrounded in an ornage glow and an unknown force to shove them away and land in heaps, unconscious. A skeleton with flames engulfing its body without scorching its clothes roared from Kai's spot with the fire on its skull blazing brightly. He then gazed around the unconscious evil souls to huff and heard a groan behind him. He turned to see the thug that stabbed him groggily sat up and saw the scared look on his face as he advance toward him. The fire sprinklers burst to the heat and fire to spray water to extinguish the unknown blaze, but never affected the fire ninja.

The skeleton grabbed a hold of the thug's jacket to lift him against the bars and pinned him against it. He looked down to see tear in his jacket with truffles of cotton sticking out. He growled as it was the jacket that his father gave him for his birthday and looked at the thug's non-torn jacket. "Nice jacket." his demonic voice acknowledged. The thug looked down to gulp after being dropped to the floor and couldn't scream. After a few minutes of wretching the new leather jacket free, the fire ninja zipped it up half on his chest and adjusted it on his shoulders. "Very nice." he complimented and looked at the studs on his shoulders to wonder.

Slowly and suddenly, the studs quickly sprouted to small spikes on his shoulders to grin as he could see the orange glow reflect off the metal. He looked down at his new gloves to have the studs resting on his knuckles to his wrist and clenched it to a fist. Just like the studs on his shoulders, multiple spikes sprouted from his knuckles like they were modified brass knuckles to inflict more damage if struck with them. The fire ninja felt a bounty burn into his skull of the demon's whereabouts and quickly stared at the bars and flicked his hands across them. Smelted steel pooled the floor as an escape can happen, but stopped to turn around. "You." he pointed to the frightened teen in the back. "Innocent." and left.

The teen kept himself pressed against the bars to everything that has happened and collasped to pass out from the tramatic scene.

* * *

Silence filled the quiet halls of the monestary dojo in the dead of the night. However, footsteps echoed on the floorboards as the dojo master walked through the darkness with a single candle as his source of light. He enjoyed the candle as it gave him a comforting glow to illuminate his surroundings, but tonight he had an uneasy feeling that something dark was within the sacred walls. He carefully felt the presense close by in the dojo to slide open the shoji doors to see a figure dressed in all black with pale skin sitting in lotus position in front of the candles while having his eyes closed.

Something was wrong.

"Forgive me, Master, for that I have disrupted the peace." the figure said and turned his head to reveal his dark eyes and wickedly content smile. "I have disrupt it a lot."

* * *

**Mwhaha! The Rider has risen again and Kai is out to hunt. Oh I love suspension in stories. Even when I make them suspenseful. What will the outcome be now even if the Ninja see the skeleton at the station. You'll have to find out next weekn and see. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'll see you all next week and have a great weekend. :)**


	12. Catch Me If You Can

**Hey everyone, happy Friday and time for an update. I got nothing much to say as usual, but enjoy.**

* * *

**C****hapter 11: Catch Me If You Can**

Footfalls echoed in the quiet parking garage of the holding lot of vehicles driven by contained thugs or parking for the police force. An officer with short dark brown hair with golden streaks shone his way through with his flashlight as he heard a strange noise echoing in the concrete area. He stopped as he heard, what was suppose to be a motorcycle engine and saw a red glow at the end of the lot. His blue eyes grew wide and yelped as he ducked from a demonic motorcycle on fire leapt over and left a trail of fire as it drove up the ramp without a driver. The officer, Alex, quickly pulled himself to think on his next plan. Call in for a missing or stolen vehicle? He couldn't tell. How was he even gonna explain this to his partner, Jamie?

* * *

Kai stomped out of the police station to cross the steet where his bike waited. He grinned as he grabbed his length of chain-links and wrapped it around his shoulders and adjusted it. "Hold it!" a voice boomed and the fire ninja turned around to feel something struck in his jaw. He narrowed the fire of his eyes at the officer that swung his nightstick at him to turn his head and reveal his dislocated jaw hanging by a thread. The officer that struck him was horrid that his attempt had done nothing. The red ninja took his mandible and quickly latched it into place and moved his mouth to numb the unknown pain. He looked down at the officer and waved his finger while tutting in his throat and hopped onto his bike and took off.

Moments later, the five elemental ninjas and samurai raced out of the building and watched the flaming skeleton leave with a trail of fire. They were all baffled and surprised to what they saw. A flaming skeleton from where they were with inside the building that Cole's cousin told them about. They couldn't even find Kai when they ran in to check on him. Where was he? "Did you guys see that!?" Jay exclaimed while pointing to the distant skeleton.

"No, duh, Jay." Cole retorted. "We all saw it. That's the same skeleton my cousin described."

"It appears that he was in a rush or something." Zane stated and watched the police cars take chase. "I say we follow after them and stop him. They don't know what they're up against like we are on their kind." and started running for the Ultra Sonic Raider with Cole, Jay, and Nya.

"What about Kai?" Lloyd asked, stopping the others in their tracks.

"We'll need to worry about him later, Shrimp." said Lucas. "Right now my gut tells me that he fought against that thing and escaped before it could hurt him. Nya, we'll find him later." The samurai nodded that the search for her brother will hold off. The grey and green ninja rushed over to the Rain while the black, blue, and white ninja and samurai and all ninjas decided to not bother to Spinjitzu into their suits as they were in street clothes and quickly hop into their seats. They ignited their engines and took off to begin the chase after the skeleton before it escaped to the Underworld or cause harm to people.

* * *

"Where's the Contract of Souls of San Anumlia?" Blackheart demanded.

The dojo master stood rigid as the demon slowly advanced toward him, but stood still. How has he escaped from the Underworld? "I have no idea what you're talking about." he lied darkly.

"Don't lie to me!" Blackheart chasisted. The ground slowly shook with a few candles flickering out of their wicks. The master now felt nervous. "You've been protecting it all these years." he continued. "Sworn to secrecy."

"Sworn to keep it from the likes of you!" the master growled.

Blackheart began to chuckle in his throat as he wasn't getting his answers. His foe was making it difficult like the Ghost Rider was. He sighed as he was no use now. "You know, there's an old saying." he chuckled. "Raise no more demon than you can lay." He took a step to have his eyes become darker. "My creator created one too many. Me."

The dojo master was now scared by his dark eyes, but stood tall to embrace death. "Equum, tuum sit. Veni in auxilium vocare." he began to chant in an ancient language. Blackheart stopped to let his anger grow stronger. He was summoning for the bounty hunter. "Tuere daemonium projiceretur animas damnatorum..." Blackheart hissed loudly to flash his glass fangs and the dimmed the entire dojo to darkness.

* * *

Kai raced down the streets with sirens blaring behind him and looked over his shoulders to see two unusal vehicle pursuing him as well. The Ninja. He felt a faint buzz in his skulls to relay it as a message. Blackheart was nearby. His target was close that he could feel it, but he glanced at the Ninja pursuing him and wished he could stop and tell them who he was. But he guess they would see him as a threat and he didn't have control of his body. To that, he growled at them and sharply turned a corner with them and the police following close.

Up ahead of him, the fire ninja could see a blockade across an archway bridge that stretched across a large river that ran through the city to the ocean and saw no escape. He growled and quickly leaned to the side and started riding on the railing of a metal arch and stopped at the top. Light shone on him from the police helicopter and gazed around the surrounding police and ninjas. "Give it up, Kai!" the chief shouted. "You're surrounded!" The red ninja gazed at the Ninja and his sister, who he realized was with them, and saw their eyes widen to the surprise and confusion and looked around for an escape to reach Blackheart before _he_ escaped. He turned his eyeless eyes on the supporters to the bridge and river and smirked. He kicked the side of his bike to have metal grinding on metal with sparks igniting and disappeared into the water.

The Ninja and police quickly rushed over to the railing and peered over. They all could see a faint red glow deep underneath the dark murky water and became quiet. They all knew the current was strong and no one would've survived, or for Kai's case, washed away. Lucas held his hand out to conjure the water, but stopped as everyone noticed the water was becoming brighter and bubbles were forming like it was boiling.

Something was happening.

Slowly underneath the water, Kai slowly emerged from the river with his bike blazing brightly to become bouyant. Everyone was in awe to how he was able to perform such a stunt without being carried away by the current. The Ninja of Fire glanced towards the crowd on the bridge to laugh demonically and revved the throttle to drive away with water spraying behind him like he was using a boat.

The Ninja and samurai were stun to the skeleton fleeing while the police began to take pursuit again. But their main surprise was that they claimed that the skeleton was Kai himself. But how? "Did you guys hear what I heard?" Jay blurted out. "That flaming skeleton is Kai? H-How?"

Cole stuttered to think. "I-I don't know." he said. "But it may be a coincidence that we couldn't find Kai."

"But still, my brother?!" Nya pointed out.

"Let's just chase and corner this guy." Lucas exclaimed. "Then we'll get our answers. If it's not Kai, then we'll know what to do. But come on before he escapes." and both he and Lloyd rushed back to the Rain while the others ran back to theirs and took pursuit and a different route to find him.

* * *

The three demons stormed up the cobblestone steps to leave the monastery in defeat. They now need to another way to their goal. But also avoid the Ghost Rider. They stopped to the sound of roaring thunder in the distance of a motorcycle to become petrified. "He's coming for us." Aquar said, voice cracking a bit.

Blackheart snorted as he knew the Rider would come from the dojo master's call of help. No doubt he'll send him back to the Underworld, but he wasn't ready to go. Not without his contract. He was one step close and he could feel it, but Samukai's hunter was keeping him at bay to reach it. "Zephyr," he said without looking back. "You know what to do."

The wind demon smirked to show her fangs and quickly materialized into dust and howled like the wind as she left.

* * *

Kai quickly turned to the left to reach an alley and drove down to hear the sirens in the distance with his trail of fire extinguishing from view. That gave him the advantage to hide after his escape on the bridge, but he won't be his normal-self till dawn. But if he was normal, they'll still hunt _him_ down for being an accused murderer which he never done. And how will his family think of him now? Even his sister? A skeleton that hunts evil. Will they see him as their brother or enemy? He can't tell. He sighed interally.

Through the poorly lit alleyways, the fire ninja aburptingly stopped as he sensed something dark and quickly turned his skull to see a flash of white and was suddenly airborne from his vehicle from an unknown force pushing him. Glass shattered underneath his back after landing on a car windshield to scamber out to roar at the wind demon. Zephyr flew across the air as dust and reanimated to her form to have her long white hair wisping behind her. "Rider," she laughed seductivly. "Come and catch me." and quickly howled away to dust.

Kai growled to the fleeing elemental demon and quickly hopped onto his bike to take chase her. But soon after, a police car was behind him to growl in annoyance. This night was becoming more and more difficult, especially if your family sees you as a threat. The red ninja followed the cloud of dust through the alley until she was leading him to a dead-end and trailed up the building. He growled to have his fiery eyes course his powers to his motorcycle and jerked his bike to raise his front wheel while gaining speed and collided with the wall. Instead of crashing, he was now driving along the walls in a ninety degree angle of glass that melted and shattered behind him.

His target wasn't getting away that easily.

* * *

A few blocks from the building called Ninjago City Tower stood another skyscraper of a hotel. In a certain room on the fifty-fifth floor was laid out ediquently for one to not be alone in. Cream color walls gave the room a calming feel and enviroment. Paintings of decorative flowers with cool colors brighten the room from the single light on the main ceiling light. On the fairly large bed sat a girl with fiery red hair pulled into a ponytail with the remote controller to the television in her hand as she flipped through what ever was on.

The girl sighed as she wished her cousin hadn't pay much for such a fancy room to her taste, but it was for one night so it wouldn't cost much on his bill. How was he going to pay for it she wondered a lot, but her cousin had his ways. But the girl wasn't focused much on that importance, it was Kai. She simply wished that he would tell her the truth than make up stories to excuse himself and be a jerk about it. She hoped this break even helps their relationship. Sighing, the orange ninja flicked the television off and climbed off the bed to stretch and grab her light jacket and headed for the door for some needed air. But quickly halted in her tracks as she could've sworn to seen fire and turned her head to the large window to see what she saw across the city. "Oh my gawd." she gasped quietly.

* * *

Kai felt airborne as soon as his motorcycle no longer felt concrete and quickly leaned forward to tilt the bike and land on the roof. The helicopter that followed him sprouted near and shone its bright light onto him, but it made Kai angry that he wanted no one to see him. Annoyed, the fire ninja jumped off his bike and unwound the chain around his shoulders and lashed it out and swung it over his head like it was a lasso. "Yee-haw!" he shouted and threw the links and felt them wrap around the landing struts and pulled. The helicopter whined and struggled to pull back from the enraged skeleton. "Come here!" he demanded as he pulled it closer with newly strength. "You're pissing me off!" He growled as he started to spin on his heels with the helicopter and unwound the chain to watch it gain control and fly away. His fire grew within from anger and annoyance and turned on his heels to a cackling.

"You should join us, Rider." Zephyr said as she made her body apparent from thin air. Her snow white hair whipped behind her even though there wasn't much wind on top of the building. "Soon we'll have the contract and will take control of this pathetic mortal realm."

Kai growled to have the fire on his skull emit brightly and grabbed a hold of her furry white coat. But she didn't show any fear in her dark eyes. This mad Kai more annoyed. But oddly, the more he stared into her eyes and form, it made him think of Laurie. Same facial features, small nose and red, pink lips and pale skin. But it couldn't be her. She left with her cousin and brother and her hair isn't white even. But evil ran through her veins. There's no way it could be her but it made him think of the earth demon that resembled Cole. This must be was the caretaker told him about. The Hidden resemble appearences as the Ninja. And this one was the wind demon and not Laurie. "Time to clean the air." he said darkly in his demonic tone, vision burning darkly to her.

The girl chuckled and became transparent to slip from his grasp and suspended a few feet above him. Flickers of her form wisped around with her hair flowing widely. Kai growled and lashed his chain out and whipped it towards her. She laughed as it grazed across her body and materialized to take her form again. It didn't even hurt her. "You're a slow learner, Rider." she said, cooing softly. "You cannot catch the winds!" snarling her glass fangs with her eyes darkening and voice strong and malice.

Kai grumbled to her stubborness, but came to a wild idea and stroked his gloved hands along the chain links to hear them rattle as they ignited to a reddish glow. He lashed his weapon out to a length wrap around his wrist and whipped toward the demon, but slowly started to twirl it in front of her. The wind demon watched the flickers of fire burn after each passing, but started to feel warm. "What are you do-!?" she screamed to stop as she realized it now. She shrieked in agony as Kai was twirling the chain faster to trap her in a vortex. The heat was becoming intense for her to feel her skin crack and burn to screech louder as she couldn't escape and bursted into dust; vanquished.

Kai lashed the cooled chain back to wrap itself around to chuckle in victory. Two down, two to go.

* * *

Sirens blared with flashes of light burning multiple flickers to have Laurie race down the streets and join the gathering ground outside the plaza of Ninjago City Tower. She gazed up with the wondering spectators and pushed herself through the crowd to be up front, but was pushed back by the front lines of officers barricading her way. This tension was making her more anxious about the truth, but she turned her head to see her brother's green sweatshirt and soon the rest of her friends gazing up at the building and quickly rushed over to them. "Guys, what's going on?" she panicked to know.

The male ninjas and samurai turned their heads to become surprised to see the wind ninja joining them. They didn't know how she'll react because it was all sudden to them all too. Even if it was true to what they saw in their eyes. Sighing, Zane walked up to Laurie to lay a comforting hand on her shoulders. "We don't what's going on here." he said. "But we think it's Kai."

Laurie felt her blood turn cold and gazed up at the building in worry. She should've believed him now.

* * *

Kai quickly hopped onto his bike to squeeze the brakes and twist the throttle to have the back wheel screech on the tarred roof to make a complete three-hundred and sixty degree turn and released the brake and broke through the concrete ledge to fly in the air. With a quick hand, he lashed the chain off his shoulders to whip the steel spike through glass and pulled to have the bike now riding down the building with the chain naturally finding its home on his shoulders. He the wind whip around his skull and could hear the gasps and worries of the spectators. Mere seconds from impacting the ground level of concrete, Kai kicked his bike in an angle and landed to send a cloud of dust of debris roughly.

A yelp escaped from the Ninja of Winds as she and everyone else shielded themselves to the shockwave of dust and carefully peeked to stare at what she was witnessing. A skeleton with a bleach white skull surrounded in an orange flame while his leather jacket, gloves, and jeans never caught ablazed. And a very strange demonic looking motorcycle with eyes blazing on the metal shull of an unknown animal she couldn't think of. She saw, believed it now. "Kai." she gasped quietly.

Kai turned his head to the faint mention of his name and saw Laurie. He gasped to see her. Where did she come from and how did she know? He felt his anger simmer to cooling at the sight of the red haired girl and could feel his fire and heat change. His fire slowly started to change to a different and a new hue of angelic blue. The Ninja was amazed to the new fire forming from the skeleton, but became alert as he climbed off his motorcycle and slowly walk toward them. Towards Laurie with a hand out. To that, the police saw it as a threat. "Prepare to fire!" Chief Johnson shouted and raised his gun at Kai.

Laurie quickly turned her head to gasp as they were all aiming toward him. She and everyone else become more frightened for their brother's sake. She then heard the command to fire. "NO!" she screamed but covered her ears as they fired.

Kai felt his body shook as he took each bullet without collasping. He heard the shots crease and saw their shocked expressions. Can't harm a skeleton when he has no soul. It's impossible. They should'ved learn their mistake from when the skeletons charged in the Solstice Battle in the past. He growled loudly to burn his orange flame brightly and held his hands out. A wall of fire blazed in front of the officers to have them shield back with the Ninja stepping back as it died down with an open path for Kai.

Laurie lifted her head to watch the skeleton climb back onto his bike. She was caught staring at him, but he was staring at her apologenically. Like he was sorry for everything. That made Laurie believe it more to feel her heart tugged on this all. The skeleton looked away to his handle bars and drove away with a trail of fire following. "Kai." she said quietly and turned to the others with teary eyes.

* * *

Not far from the scene, Blackheart and the last hidden element witnessed it all. The anger and change of heart to the girl with fiery red hair. The Rider was with someone he loved. The two may have already lost Obsid and Zephyr to him, but he now had an upper hand now. A chance to now find his contract. "We know his weakness now." he said with a sly smirk. "Everything most important to him."

* * *

**Duh duh duhh! XD Another suspension of a cliffhanger. Well maybe not, but still after that action of a chase, the main demon now has an advantage against our hero of the story. Eyes now set for a certain girl. ANyway, I got nothing else to say but hope you enjoyed the story, leave a review if you wish and have a warm weekend indoors if the weather starts to become cold now and I'll see you all next week. :)**


	13. Legend of the Past Rider

**Hey everyone, happy Friday and time for an update. Nothing much to say but enjoy the suspension that had you waiting from last week.**

* * *

**Chapter 12: Legend of the Past Rider**

_Crwhack... Crwhack..._

The sunny warm morning broke through the clouds as the caretaker of the Ignicia Village cemetery was out splitting firewood and felt the sun bake his neck. The sun may feel warm, but the small autumn chill wasn't. Small breezes swayed across the graveyard to his long greasy grey hair. It even flutter the petals of the cherry blossom trees to decorate the hallow grounds in a salmon pink hue. Fall was here no doubt. The caretaker felt his facial muscles tug a small smile as he enjoyed the cool weather in Ignicia Village as it felt soothing and calm for one to live alone; except for the gravestones he didn't care. He turned away from the morning sun to return to his chores and grabbed a fresh log to rest on the block, wield his axe over his head, and used the momentum to bring the sharpened wedge in the center.

_Crwhack!_

The caretaker reached down to the splintering wood with a rough callous hand and slowly wretched the axe head free and turned his head to sound of dried leaves crunching underneath. He had to smirk without looking at who it was and looked over his shoulders to the sight of Kai walking up with his hands dug into the pockets of his new leather jacket. His smirk was still plastered as he stood up and set his blade down. "Figure you be back, Bonehead." he laughed to turn back to raise his axe and whacked it down to split the log completely.

Kai rolled his light chocolate brown eyes as he came up to him. The rest of the night was just awful to him after he escaped from Ninjago City and kept wondering about Laurie and his family knowing the truth. In fact, everybody in Ninjago knew him by now as a _killer_ on the loose. He figured he's the top news for a wanted murderer on which he never done and will be hunted down no matter how much effort they'll use. Just how was he going adjust to this all. "Well they know about me now." he finally said to break the utter silence and pinched the bridge of his nose to ponder.

The caretaker grabbed a fresh log to rest it on the block and brought the log down to split a clean cut. "Who's that?" he wondered while grabbing another log; obviously knowing the answer.

"Everyone does." Kai stated directly. "My family. The cops. And possibly everywhere in Ninjago." He started to pace around. "I'm basically the top headlines for being a wanted criminal for something I never done." He then stopped. "What? You don't watch TV? What's the matter with you?" The caretaker looked over his shoulders to laugh a little and split his fifth log and the fire ninja rolled his eyes. "Is this ever going to end for me?" he asked.

"It'll end if you can catch him." the caretaker replied and freed his axe.

Kai sighed as that'll be a challenge he can't do alone. Even if he was against supernatural beings when he's one as well at night. But still why him? What does Blackheart want from this world? What's he seeking to be dear to him? Kai couldn't comprehend one bit of it. "What's really going on?" he demanded to know more of his deal.

The caretaker had had his axe held high but turned to the red ninja and slammed it into the chopping bloke and grabbed his spade shovel. Kai had to only why he had favored that shovel for a reason. "Follow me." he said while motioning him to follow. Kai looked at him skeptically as he followed him through the rows of weathered gravestones and mausoleums until they stopped at a gravestone. Through the weather damage, the Ninja of Fire could easily read the name etched into the stone and turned to the caretaker with notched brow raises as he leaned onto the spade handle. "Carter Slate." he uttered.

"Legend has it he was once a Ranger." he began to tell the tale. "A man of honor. But he got greedy. Found himself locked up, waiting for the gallows." He shifted around to have the shovel resting in both hands. "One night, Samukai came to him. Offering him freedom and Slate made the deal. He ended up as a Ghost Rider." He shifted his eyes toward Kai. "Like you."

Kai stared at the stone with the Ranger's name and could imagine him alive and running in the olden times of Ninjago like he read in history books at middle school before. But now he could see Samukai making the deal with Slate and become the Ghost Rider before him. "So what does he have to do with this?" he pried.

"Remember that contract Samukai made?" the caretaker asked to refresh Kai's memory yesterday. "With the people of San Anumlia?" He averted his grey eyes to receive a slight nod from him. "The story goes that Slate was sent to collect the souls. But what he found was so evil, that he took the contract and rode off."

"He stole it then." Kai guessed.

"Kept Samukai from getting his hands on it. Some say he was buried with it."

"Was he?" the fire ninja pried.

"I don't know." the caretaker admitted. He then looked away to look down at Kai's height from being a bit taller than him. "But what I do know is that Blackheart is coming, and he'll do anything to get it. That's why it is important for you to stay away from friends and family. Anyone he can use against you, because he will. Only you alone can stop him. Your ninja friends won't help you on this."

Kai felt a wave of realization wash over him to what he meant. If his friends can't help him fight Blackheart, they'll be in danger. His sister, brothers, and even Laurie. But would they want to see him again for being what he was last night? He didn't care though, his family was in danger. "No." he gasped quietly and quickly ran off to hop onto his motorcycle, which he realized wasn't his to begin with, and kick-started it to drive off. He gazed at the sun and knew he was gonna reach Ninjago City by nightfall, but it wasn't gonna stop him. He'll reach them before Blackheart does.

* * *

Nervousness. And also worriness. Both felt the same, but that's how the wind ninja felt. Laurie had been pacing nervously aroud the Destiny Bounty's bridge while the others were gazing around the locations in the computerized map to search for Kai's whereabouts. She was now convinced from what the fire ninja has revealed to her and the others now. They know that it was Kai no matter what. A skeleton that can summon fire. Has he been like this his entire life? No, Nya would've known that. But still. "Come on, guys." she blurted out. "Where's Kai? We have to find him."

The other male ninjas and samurai turned their heads to meet their gaze with the frantic girl. They had to shrug their shoulders. They want to find their elemental brother, as Nya wanted too desperately, but couldn't find any leads of him. "We're doing our best, Laurie." said Zane, dark blue eyes focused to determination. "My falcon is searching everywhere in Ninjago while we're doing our best to find any turn ups of our brothers. Be patient."

Laurie felt anger build up and wanted to walk up to the ice ninja and slap him across the face for telling her to be patient when she's anixous to find Kai and know more of him, but instead gave him a hard stare. Jay and the others noticed the glare, but decided to not bother about it. "I'm still trying to put this together." the lightning ninja said to have eyes directed on him. "How in the world is Kai a freakin' skeleton when he's human already!? It's not like you're human and all of a sudden a skeleton that's on fire! That's like impossible, right!?" He kept turning his head and turned to a worry looking Nya. "Nya, did you know anything of Kai like this?" he wondered about the siblings. "Anything?"

Nya lifted her head to meet her light brown eyes with Jay's hazel eyes and shook her head. She never knew anything of her brother being able to transform into a skeleton until witnessing everything last night. She felt worried and scared to believe this and had had an unrestful night like the others have to have small purple bags under her eyes. She sighed and looked away and stare away from the others. "I never knew anything of Kai being able to do this." she said quietly. "I know my brother, but I can't think that it's really him. I don't know what to think right now."

The Ninja stared at the samurai with pity and had to agree with her. The sky was slowly faing to have the colors of red, orange, and yellow with darkness overlapping, and they can't find any leads of the fire ninja as the day has gone by. They don't know what to think if it was him or not, but after the events last night it had to be him. Cole sighed and walked up to the girl to lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "We know this is hard to believe and he's your brother." he spoke comfortly as he could. "But this is something we must figure out to see if it's him."

"And if it's not Kai," Lloyd chirped in as he sat on the mahogeny table while swinging his legs. "Then what?"

"Simple Pipsqueak," Jay rebutted in. "If it's a normal Skulkin warrior, we beat it to dust and send it back to the Underworld." He turned to face as he felt nervous to receive a hard stare from the earth ninja and Nya. "He-he." he gulped a little.

The black ninja unstitched his bushy brows and turned back to the girl. "As I was saying, beside Jay's remark,-"

"Hey!" the blue ninja exclaimed.

"Once we find Kai, we'll seek the answers we need from him." Cole continued. "But this may take awhile. Just wish we had some answers about the skeletons." A sudden realization flashed in the Ninja of Earth's amber eyes and soon the others did and turned their attention toward Lucas. The water ninja gave them a quizzical look while raising his scarred brow and crossed his arms across his chest to lean against the table to be next to his cousin for a seat. "Lucas, you spent some of your life in the Underworld," Cole said. "Have you ever seen any skeletons like this before? Any kinds?"

Good question. The grey ninja had to agree. He used to live in the Underworld with his uncle, Lord Garmadon, at the age of ten and train as his apprentice. He seen all kinds of skeletons, including an old gatekeeper that was his friend, but he has never seen one that can control fire. He looked away to ponder more of the Underworld and shook his head. "I actually never seen anything like this before." he admitted. "I know I was surrounded by skeletons everyday, but never seen anything like this. Samukai-"

There was the sound of the door opening and all heads turned to face Cole's cousin, Dawn, at the door way. The girl felt nervous as she stared around with her green grey eyes while playing with her hands in the conjoined pocket of her yellow sweatshirt. They even noticed her yellow backpack sat by her feet. "I, uh, hope I'm not interrupting anything." she said quietly. "But I was coming by to say goodbye to Cole before I head back to Natura Village. I want to be back before my mother gets worried for me about the skeleton thing."

Cole smiled softly about his cousin's decision and started to walk over to her, but stopped as Lucas beat him to her. He was now taken by surprise to his move to give him a small hard stare. "You mean you're leaving?" Lucas said to her.

The raven-haired girl softly smiled to the water ninja to see him blush a light pink. Her eyes were soft as she wrapped her arms around him to a hug. Cole's amber eyes now went wide on the affection his cousin had on the water ninja. Does she...have a crush on him? "I thank you for showing me around and all, but I should head back home because I know my mother and little sister worry for me. Especially Cole. But I'll try and see you again, Stormy." and pecked his cheek lightly to leave him blushing beet red. She smiled and walked around the stunned grey ninja to her cousin and pulled him to a tight embrace. "Promise you visit us and come to Maddi's birthday." she whispered in his ear.

Cole smiled and wrapped his arms around her. "I promise I will." he promised. "Promise you give Maddi a cuddle from her favorite cousin." Dawn looked up to give him a sincere nod and heard a car horn below the ship. "There's your ride, you better get going." She nodded to hug him one last time, saying her goodbyes, and left while grabbing her backpack. The earth ninja walked his cousin leave off the Bounty and turned to the love struck water ninja. "Ahem." he coughed to grab his attention back.

Lucas remained still like he was hyponitized by a Hypnobrai and quickly recovered to shake his head and return normal and looked around puzzled. He now understood how Jay felt around Nya near Kai. "Uh... Where was I again?" he asked on his vague memory. He even felt stupid now.

"Uh... Samukai? Skeleton? Underworld? Kai!" Jay pointed each item off the list. "Does it sound familiar now, Lover-Boy?" He had to smirk since he was the new one experiencing love at first sight. "Or has all the water from your powers turn your brain to algae? Ha-ha!"

The grey ninja glared at Jay with his hazel grey eyes, but felt a hand resting on his shoulders and looked over to see his father shaking his head. He nodded back to avoid a fight. But he'll get him back for that. He began to jog back to where he was left off being interrupted. "Right... As I was saying," he continued while pacing around the bridge. "Samukai always kept to himself from Garmadon. We never knew what he was up to. He was even a powerful alchemist." He closed his eyes to think deeply of his past and had something. "Now I think about it, I remember reading a lesson from my tutor from Darkly's about legends of a skeleton like this and something about hidden elements." That slowly brought everyone's attention now. "I would need to look at my dad's books, but of course he would _have_ them locked up." turning to his father.

Sensei Wu's grey eyes were closed as he stroked his long white beard and opened them to see his student's eyes were full of concern. He had to agree with their concern and adjusted his straw hat. "I know that you seek from my books and wonder why I have them locked up." he said. "They're dangerous to those seeking information, but apparently I don't have them in possession." The Ninja perked up on the news of theft that has happened behind their backs. "But I happen to know where they are. They're all cluttered up in the game room after Kai picked my lock. Seems like he was searching for what you all needed too."

The Ninja slowly relaxed to know that the books were safe and only Kai was the thief. But now that they know where they were, they can start searching for their information. Without hesistation, Laurie quickly ran out of the room to head inside for the ship with the others following after her to hear the floorboards groan to the combined weight to rush inside. The wind ninja gazed around the aged books littered in the game room and grabbed the nearest one to rest on her knees as she placed the leather bound book on the coffee table to begin searching. "What have you gotten yourself into, Kai?" she murmured to carefully browse with the others helping.

* * *

The sun had finally disappeared as the fire ninja slowly reached Ninjago City. The full moon rose high with the blazing lights of the skyscrapers soaring high into the sky. Kai came to a halt as he was nearing at the city and felt nervous and worried about entering within. He was a wanted criminal now and even at first sight of a teen with spiky hair will have him arrested. But still, his family was a target to a demon if he doesn't reach them first.

Without caring about the consequences, the burnet killed the engine of his motorcycle and pushed it over to a billboard and threw branches of a bush over it to hide the vehicle and stared at the city. He growled as he could feel Blackheart's presense in the distance and started running. His shadow casted along the pavement from the street lamps as he entered and quickly ducked himself into an alley as a police cruiser cruised by. He grumbled as this was harder that he anticipated. "Looks like the only way to reach Dareth's is stealth." he mumbled to himself and stepped out to continue to run through the large, energenic city.

He hoped to reach them on time.

* * *

**Oh everyone is now in danger all thanks to Kai as a Ghost Rider. Hope he could make it on time to protect everyone from Blackheart or else. If not, then what? Find out next week and see what happens. Love it when I leave suspension as usual. XD I got nothing else to say but have a nice weekend and see you all next week for a new update. :)**


	14. Have Until Dawn

**Hey everyone, how are we doing today? Time for an update. Enjoy.**

* * *

**C****hapter 13: Have Until Dawn **

Pages rustled after each turn. Books thunked on the floor or table after being tossed aside lightly. Pure concentraction was glue to every word being seeked as wondering eyes scanned through. There was even the stifle laugh or giggle from Jay as he found something funny as he read. Laurie had looked from her book to roll her eyes at the blue ninja's humor and glanced back down to her book. The wind ninja has been searching frantically to find her answers of Kai, but she or the others haven't found anything. But she knew she couldn't give up. She had to keep looking.

Zane scanned through his book and sighed. He hasn't found any lead like the others and closed his book to rest it aside and leaned back to stretch for sitting on the floor next to Jay. He was stumped like the others were. He couldn't even find any research in his databanks. Being a nindroid, you would think he'll know all answers, but sadly he couldn't find any. He scanned around his dark blue eyes and turned to the water ninja as he leaned against the doorframe while browsing in his book. "Lucas, not to pry or anything," he said while stretching his legs to hear his robotic limbs pop like normal bones would and crossed them over his lap. The grey ninja lifted his head from his book. "But are you sure you don't remember anything of this particular skeleton that may be our brother? Anything at all?"

The Ninja of Water stared at the ice ninja to shake his head. He wished he knew more to help them, but only can give them what he knew already. "I already told you that I don't know much else." he stated. "Samukai always kept to himself and I knew every skeleton there was. I even had a close friend from them." He flipped his book to place it in the center of the room for the group to see. The others, but Laurie, gazed to the picutre that covered the entire page to show an ink sketch of a golden dragon with symbols of six elements. "I only found something called the Hidden Elements that too were side creations from your previous _stone warrior_ problem before. This dark lord, whatever you called him, created these slaves to fight against the First Spinjitzu Master after splitting Ninjago in half. But however, something different happen."

Everyone looked at him confused and stared more into the picture. "It says that only the Fire element can hunt them and capture them like it was a...bounty hunter." he continued. "No idea what that means. But I feel like that has to do something with Kai. He's fire and so is this...tale or legend says that Fire hunts. Like a odd connection." He turned to the white ninja. "Zane, can you take note of this?"

The nindroid nodded and slid the sleeve of his white sweatshirt to his elbow an opened his panel on his forearm. His eyes glowed brighter and dispersed rays of light while slowly scanning the picture and text. Inside his head, he could see the picture and scripture copying until it finished. His eyes dimmed and closed the panel to slide his sleeve back to his wrist. "Scanning complete." he announced and handed the book back to Lucas." I suggest you find more information in this book. We may be a step closer to know about Kai." The water ninja nodded and grabbed his book to lean against the wall to continue searching.

Sensei Wu studied his students as they browsed through his books to find their answers of their brother. He could see it was a race against the clock to know more of Kai before it was ever late. He felt an uneasy feeling in the air. It felt cold and dark. He had his eyes narrorwed and gripped his bamboo staff tightly as he felt the presense growing close than he thought. He realized it now.

He felt something unknown lightly touch his chest and felt his breath quivered. He could see his hands around his staff loosen and turn a light shade of purple and lifted his eyes to see a man in black with a wicked smirk stroll in. As if time had reduced, Sensei Wu watched the demon waltz in without being noticed and tapped his son's shoulder and his nephew's back. He contined to struggling to swallow down gulps of air and watched the demon tapped Nya and Zane. Sensei Wu grew worried for his pupils as their skin and struggling to breathe were synced as his and slowly fell to his knees to hyperventilate to breathe.

Laurie, without glancing from her book, continued to search through the book that Kai had before she left and stopped after turning the page to feel her heart stop. She stared at the ink sketch of a skeleton standing over a floor full of skulls in the background that would like the Underworld with fire encasing its body. What Kai was like last night. She read the legend of the skeleton to notice the words like her cousin mentioned. _Hidden Elements. Fire. Bounty Hunter_ It dawned onto the wind ninja as she finished the legend and thought it over what Kai tried to tell her. Kai was a Ghost Rider. "Geezus." she breathed quietly.

"Not even close." a cold dark voice mused to make Laurie jump and turn.

The red head turned to see Jay and Cole standing next to each other and her eyes grew wide as their skin faded to a light purple and both struggled to breath and collapsed to reveal a man behind them. He chuckled darkly with his smug grin on his pale blue face. Laurie felt her heart racing against her chest and felt the blood drain from her freckled face and started to shake at the sight of her friends and family. All light shades of purple with dark eyes and struggling to breathe down air. The wind ninja couldn't find her voice to scream as the unknown man slowly advanced to her while she slowly stepped back to have her back pressed against the wall. She caught the glimpse of metal glinting from the corner of her eye and averted them to see Kai's katana and snatched it to grip the handle with both hands like the Ninja of Fire done do to protect herself. May not be her bō staff, but it'll do.

The man just chuckled like it was a joke.

Laurie felt petrified to move to the unknown figure that could perform whatever it was to everyone in the room and was scared. She had to wonder if this was Blackheart Kai tried to tell her about. The orange ninja watched him move a step and instantly felt adrenaline kick in and swung the weapon, but Blackheart easily stepped aside in alarming speeds. She quickly turned on the heels to swing the blade at him, but her wrist was caught and the sword was wretched from her grip and tossed out of the window with broken glass littering the floor. Laurie felt her arm turn icy cold from his grip and struggled against his hold, but couldn't. She now felt frozen as she gazed into his dark eyes. Oh where was Kai? "That won't be necessary now, will it?" he laughed cold and menacing.

* * *

Sirens blared in the distance with the casual citizen strolling by. Dareth hefted the plastic bag of garbage over his shoulders as he carried it out of his dojo and home and swung around into the alley. He slowly felt nerve-racking to the dark alley as if someone was with him. He just hated taking out the trash away on a normal daily basis; especially at night and when now there's a loose skeleton in the city. He quickly stopped to the sound of a bottle breaking to levivate his heart rate and watched a black tomcat race past his feet to cause him to jump and sighed. "I think I need a va-ca after this." he muttered to himself and opened the tin lid of the metal trash can to discard the trash.

After tossing out the trash bag, Dareth began to feel someone was actually behind him. A thug or the skeleton? He couldn't tell the difference and heard footsteps come closer and quickly jumped around to strike a pose. "The Roaring Lion!" he shouted and fell to the ground to roar an imitation of a lion. "The Leaping Frog!" and squated down to croak. He glared into the shadows to show himself and the fear in his eyes.

"Whoa calm down, brown ninja." a familiar voice said. "It's only me."

Dareth felt his heart ease to the voice and stood back up. "Kai?" he asked and watched the figure step from the shadows to see it was the fire ninja. He couldn't tell it was him for wearing the leather jacket instead of his red armourized gi and mask with the katana. But when he saw the spiked brown hair, he knew it was him. He sighed in relief. "Man if you shown yourself eariler, you would've gotten yourself a taste of my animal moves." he gloated. Kai rolled his eyes as he didn't have time to gloat. "Hey man, what's going on?" he asked. "Everyone in town is looking for you. Is it true about you? You're a murderer and a skeleton?"

Kai nodded at him about the skeleton but explained he wasn't the murderer. Not at all. "Where's Laurie and my friends?" he asked hastly. "I need to reach them before it's too late."

"They're still up on my roof in your ninja hideout." Dareth responded while directing him up. "I thought I heard a window break or something but I thought the squirt was doing something, but not sure. But they're up there still."

"What!?" Kai shouted and tilted his head to see the red wooden dragon headpiece to become worried. If Blackheart already beaten him to his family, they'll be drained like those before. He had to reach them and kill the demon before he could do harm. The fire ninja's eyes caught something reflecting from the streetlights and saw his katana blade in the ground. _How did that get there?_ he wondered. _Doesn't matter. Blackheart must be stopped. _He started to run down the alley to snatch his weapon free and climbed up the fire escape.

"Hey you gonna need any help?" Dareth called to him while cupping his hands to his mouth.

The fire ninja stopped to look over the first ledge to shake his head rapidly. "Your animal moves won't work against this thing." He stated. "Just stay inside and don't call the cops." He saw him nod and continued to climb up to the roof until the Bounty was in view. With the sword held tightly in one hand, Kai raced across the tarred roof to the ramp and froze to the sight of what he saw on the deck.

The blood on his face drained.

His family each had the same shade of light purple and dark eyes with ragged breathing. The fire ninja was both worried and relieved to see them alive still, but for how long though? Not only they were the same on the deck, their bodies were aligned to form a pattern. Kai figured it was a symbol of death from the language of the Underworld from the book he read. Three bodies were laid horizontal on the floor with two laid vertical on top of the first two lines and the final two bodies forming a "V" shape underneath the second body and above the third. The spiky haired burnet was more worried as the symbol meant death and could imagine the symbol coming to life as a demon.

Death.

Kai quickly shook the image from his head and rushed over to his sister to kneel next to her and could see the fear in her light brown eyes. "N-Nya." he cried to her scaridly and stroked her cold black hair. He grew more scared as he heard his sister trying to catch her breath and cough his name, but grew more ragged breathing and shivers. He scanned around the bodies and spotted fiery red hair away from the others at the ship's bow and quickly rushed over to kneel next to Laurie. "Laurie!" he shouted as he examined her body to see her pale blue skin made her orange tank top contrast brightly and noticed her breathing was shallow and controlled.

"K-Ka-Kai!" she wheezed to breathe. "L-Look out!"

Kai's ears perked up to the warning and snatched his sword from the floor, but was too late to turn as a hand wrapped around his throat and pinned him to the mast. He finally caught his sight back to see his assaliant and saw it was Blackheart screeching at him. Kai now grew angry to the demon on his stunt to his family and felt the fire in his chest ignite to squeeze his eyes tight. He felt his body erupt to the fire to quickly transform into a skeleton to startle the demon and grabbed his shoulder to push him away to the other side of the ship to slam his back against the wall. He now had him. "Look into my eyes!" he demanded to perform the Penance Stare.

Panic flashed in the demon's cold eyes as he started to hyperventilate against the demon. Laurie and the others in their weaken stature witnessed the transformation and saw it now. The flaming skeleton is Kai. The demon continue to stare into the empty sockets, but the expression on his face changed as he started to laugh. This made Kai confused with the fire rumbling in his throat. "Your Penance Stare won't work on me." Blackheart said and grabbed Kai's throat. The fire ninja felt his icy grip chill through his bony body and felt his fire extinguish in a black blaze until it was a normal skeleton to loosen his grip. "I have no soul to burn. I guess you haven't found that out yourself then. _Surprise_." With great unknown strength, he lifted the Ninja of Fire off his feet and slammed his back against the floorboards and kicked him far across the deck.

Pain shot through Kai's back to have himself surrounded in a black veil of smoke. He looked down to notice his hands weren't fragments of cartilage and tried to summon the Ghost Rider spirit, but couldn't. He felt limited to use his new powers like when Garmadon stole his Sword of Fire. He glanced up at the demon as he towered over him to take a knee on his chest. "Now listen to me, Rider." he demanded. "And listen well. You work for me now and not Samukai. You know where the Contract of Souls is and you will bring it to me in San Anumlia or else." and glanced his dark eyes away. Kai turned his head to see Laurie on her feet with her pale skin back, but in the grips of the water demon that almost resembled Lucas. He could see the fear in her eyes. "She and your friends die. They're incapacitated for now." Blackheart rose to his feet and walked towards the ramp with the water demon and wind ninja. "You have till dawn." and left.

Kai felt renewed energy spread through his body and quickly scrambled to his feet and rushed over to see the three were gone. "No!" he cried out as they were gone in a flash. The fire ninja now was in a predicament. Let the demon have the contract and control the world or let Laurie and his family die without it. He couldn't let either happen. Nya was all he left since Samukai killed their parents since he made the deal. Now he's paying the price. But he'll need to repay it then.

By killing Blackheart.

Gazing around the deck, the Ninja of Fire grabbed the wooden sheath of his katana and started attaching it to his back by winding the chain-links around it. The Ninja and Sensei Wu continued to straggle a cry while breathing slowly as they witnessed it all and the fire burning in his eyes as he walked to the mast to grab his sword. "K-K-Kai," Cole wheezed quietly to breathe. "Wha-What a-a-are you do-doing?"

Kai gazed to the night without looking over his shoulder to his family. The weapon felt light in his hand and could feel control anger burn in his spirit than the Rider's. He know he was staring toward the east and lifted his arm to reach over and sheath the katana in its home. He growled. "I'm going to end this once and for all. " he grumbled and walked off the ship.

* * *

**More suspension can lead to a great story, such as this. A race against time now to end this hunt once and for all. Oh hope that Kai ends this and save everyone. I got nothing else to say, but have a great weekend and see you all next week for the next update and don't be afraid to review as well. See ya next week. :)**


	15. Let's Ride

**Hey everyone, happy Friday. Time for an update and nothing much to say but this chapter is like short so it's an important filler chapter basically. Anyway, enjoy.**

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**Chapter 14: Let's Ride**

Crickets chirped in the warm darkness. The wind howled softly to rustle a few leaves and blossom petals to gust into a cemetery. The moon blazed brightly to the cloudless sky over Ignicia Village; enlighting the roads after curfew of the night. A man walked across the darkness of the graveyard with his trenchcoat flowing behind him from the wind against him and lifted his head to the full moon to not even give a smile to it. He sensed something was wrong. All was peaceful until the sound of a thundering engine broke the silence.

To that, the caretaker had turned to the sound. He has come.

The caretaker gazed to the distance to hear the roaring engine racing toward his direction and simply adjusted his leather trenchcoat. It looked like a bounty hunters kind of coat from the olden times. A reason why he was dressed in this new attire was that he sensed something was wrong and true. He saw the single beam of light turn onto the path with the thunder growing louder and stopped to see the Rider. But he was human and not in flames. "Figure you be back, Bonehead." he remarked.

Kai rolled his eyes after killing the engine and kicked the kickstand to keep the motorcycle balanced and parked. He quickly transvered over to the caretaker with the chain-links rattling on his back with his katana still attached to it. He didn't have any time for games or remarks from him. "Where's the contract?" he demanded harshly. "I can't end this without it. He has Laurie and possibly my friends and sister's souls if I don't have it until dawn or else."

The caretaker was silent to respond with his grey eyes glinting with concern. Kai was starting to lose more time and patients with him and snatched the spade shovel from leaning against a tree and rushed over to Carter Slate's grave. He gripped the wooden handle tightly to face the grave of the previous Ghost Rider and somehow could feel his presense. He decided to ignore it as it meant nothing for he believed the tale that he was buried with it. To that, he was going to ungrave the coffin deep within six feet of earth. He held the shovel high and ready to break the ground, but felt something stop him and turned to face the caretaker, who had a determined look.

"It ain't there, Kid." he stated and snatched it from him. Kai had his notched brow raised as the caretaker took the shovel and smacked the shovel head against a cherry blossom tree and broke off. But his eyes widen as he saw something was in the hollow handle as he pulled out a rolled up parchment. The spiky haired teen stared at the slim roll of aged paper wrapped around a wooden base and his chocolate eyes widen in realization. It was what he needed.

The Contract of Souls.

The Ninja of Fire was stunned to think it was buried underneath the ground, but was hidden away to ensure Samukai would never find it in the grave. Impressive idea he had to admit to himself. He noticed the caretaker had held the scroll out to him as an offer and tried to reach for it, but was quickly withdrawn from him. "Why do you seek for this so badly?" the caretaker wondered. "Greed? Pride? Or freedom? Why is that?"

Kai stopped to think of his statement for a moment as he was right. The way he sounded to him demanding for the contract made it sound greedy to fetch it for Blackheart. And it would give him awful pride to save those he loves, but let the demon rule the world. What kind of friend and ninja would he be? A selfish one. Like when he sold his soul to save his father. It now came to him. "He may have my soul," he said strongly. "But he doesn't have my spirit. My will to save those I love and care for. My sister, friends, and Laurie. You have to trust me." He held his gloved hand out.

A chuckle rumbled in the caretaker's throat to leave the red ninja confused. Was it something he said? "It takes a man to sell his soul for love of others he charises," he said. "But can help change the world. You didn't sell your soul for greed or pride, but rather for love and freedom. With that, that puts faith and courage on your side. And with those, you can end this and save those you love and yourself." He held the scroll out to Kai and gave him a confident look. "I trust you'll do the right thing." he said with a supportive tone in his voice.

Kai was puzzled to understand and why he was willingly giving him the contract to him. Faith and courage to stop Blackheart he understood, but save himself? Could it mean ridding his curse and reclaim his soul from the skeleton king? It could be possible. The spiky haired teen still gazed to the offered scroll and laced his gloved fingers around it and freed it slowly from his grip. He stared at the aged parchment and felt his heart become heavy to it and dared not unravel it and nodded as he lifted his gaze to the caretaker. "Thank you." he said quietly. "Now to end this once and for all."

A smile formed on the caretaker's bearded face to see the Rider-eh-Kai accept his fate as the bounty hunter. He no longer saw him the idiot kid that sold his soul to the Underworld King, but the strong Ghost Rider to save the world from the End of Days and shadows. He had his mission now, kill Blackheart. Soft wind chills brushed his greasy grey hair and he turned on the heels of his leather boots. "We better get going." he announded leaving the fire ninja behind him confused. "San Anumlia is on the outskirts of the Sea of Sands and we better make it before dawn appoarches."

"We?" Kai asked confused and gazed at him skeptically. The fire ninja followed after him to the path where his bike was parked and stuffed the scoll into his jacket. He watched the caretaker raise two fingers to his lips and whistled.

Fog began to form a dark and eeriy feel in the graveyard to make the hairs on the fire ninja's neck stand. The sound of stomping made his eyes grow wide as something was racing toward them but then came the whine of a horse. From the fog, the red ninja watched a mirage of a horse become visible from the darkness of the night and slowly trot to the caretaker. A black and grey mustang horse with a rough leather saddle with various miscellious weapons and items hanging off the straps. Kai stared at the horse to raise his notched brow more and turned to the caretaker.

What was going on? Where did that horse come from?

The caretaker patted the horse's mane while it snorted. "There's one last ride left in me." he said quietly and fed his boot through the saddle foot rest and pulled himself to seat on the saddle. After he adjusted himself, he grabbed an old hat to adorn onto his head with and suddenly burst into flames to reveal a bleach white skeleton in fire.

Startled, the fire ninja was taken by surprise to what was seen by his brown eyes. Another Ghost Rider. But not just any Rider to make Kai laugh a little. "Carter Slate." he smiled to meet with the prenounced deceased ranger alive as a Ghost Rider. Slate nodded a salute. He then faced the horse. "Can you keep up?" he wondered for having ludicrous speed on the motorcycle. Fire sprung from the ground to engulf the horse in a blaze and dimmed to reveal a skeletonized horse in flames to snort fire and whip its head.

Kai smirked to the previous Ghost Rider as he has help finding San Anumlia before dawn now. But also fulfill a skeleton's last request and ride as one. He still felt honored to meet him. He glanced up to the moon in the sky to notice it was starting to descend and knew what was coming. Dawn was aprroaching in less than a couple of hours. He needed to race against the clock now to reach the ghost town in the Sea of Sands and rescue Laurie and his friends and sister's souls. Nothing will stop him. Still smirking, the fire ninja climbed onto his bike and gripped the handlebars tightly. "Alright then." he said and removed the kickstand. "Let's ride." and kicked started the bike while transforming into his skeleton form.

To San Anumlia now.

* * *

**Sadly I wished I could find that one soundtrack of Kai transforming into his Rider form after saying _Let's ride._ Would've set the mood really well. Oh well then, I suppose. Anyway, I got nothing much else to say but have a good weekend, leave a review if you wish to, and see you all next week. :)**


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